


My Hands (They Shake)

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Head and Hands [3]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: Alternate Universe - Psychics/Psionics, M/M, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 19:21:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 72,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd been flooded with work the second he hit the door and he hadn't had five minutes alone to so much as piss since he'd gotten started, never mind meeting Will for lunch at the sub place. It wouldn't be that bad if anything was remotely interesting. It had mostly been investigative exemplars, more investigative exemplars, four missing persons and one possible kidnapping that would probably end up being called a missing person.</p>
<p>If somebody didn't bring Greg caffeine in very short order, he was going to stab someone in the eye, or at least handcuff the next tech who came by to the desk and go in search of a vending machine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Hands (They Shake)

"Honey, I'm home," Greg yelled. Scrabbling toenails sounded, and he knew that he was going to be assaulted by a big pushy dog any second.

Mal burst out of nowhere, waddling funny in that way that said there was probably rain coming or that he'd slept weird. His owner, Will, had a thing for collecting strays, damaged or not, and making them happy. Greg didn't just know that from a series of pictures of dogs with funny names and missing legs, eyes, tails. He knew it from the trace of fingertips over old dog toys, from touching the coffee table in the place Rudy liked to rub his chin, the pillow Sam slept on when he wasn't hooked up to his rolling walker.

Will had a soft spot for the completely lost causes that weren't actually lost causes if someone had the time to devote to them. Greg figured that if he wanted, it was easy to psychoanalyze Will on the cheap -- his stepson was in a full time nursing home facility. The dogs had come before that, though, so it got a little chicken and the egg.

Mostly, dogs lived without drama or demands past _feed me, love me, pet my funny leg_.

"You missed out on the _we're hiring new instructors_ fiasco," Will told him, levering himself up from the sofa. There was something slow-simmering on the stove that he was watching. "Does the DNA lab nearly get into fistfights over that crap?"

He didn't have to think about it much. "This one not so much. My last job, there was a guy working trace who'd sell me out for the price of a new mass spec." Greg had always kind of liked Hodges. At least he was honest. "Back-stabbing much today?" He leaned in just a little, and Mal nudged him forwards again, closer to Will. "I thought we'd call out for Chinese unless you're in the mood for something else."

"Oh, it's been Army versus Navy versus Air Force versus FBI all day. Worse than local police forces. There's this Air Force guy they want and I have to go to his interview tomorrow." Presumably so Will could read his mind and prove some point one way or the other. "Since Brooks retired, our tactical training has been stand-ins from wherever we could grab while they fought over this."

"Huh. I'd pay somebody money to run around after some of those guys with a paintball gun. How many guys are they considering for it seriously?" Greg let his mouth curl up and stepped a little closer to Will. There wasn't anything serious going on between them. Not yet, and the sexual tension wasn't so thick it could be walked on. He'd freely admit he wasn't expecting that to change anytime soon, either, but what they had was enough for the time being. It was nice and casual and not very far at all, but friendship and soft odd affection.

"Just two. And one of them is more theoretical than hands on." And Will, Will was all about the hands on. Not that anyone was going to be putting Will out on a field with a paintball gun. He'd manage to kill someone with it with his luck. He'd only finally gotten back to running regularly a couple of weeks ago.

Will leaned in towards Greg, and kissed his cheek, lingering. "I've got months worth of spaghetti sauce on, so takeout sounds good."

"Number 1?" Over the last couple of months, he'd kind of gotten used to the area, and the fried rice was damn good. He was practically salivating already. "Fried rice, sweet and sour chicken...?"

"Mmm, yeah. Exactly." Will was pretty easy with food, particularly places where he knew the owners, and he did things like cook spaghetti sauce. He'd tried making pizza with it once but the crust was kind of weird and they both decided it was better just as bread than crust, and sauce than pizza topping. "We're taking in a new class in two weeks."

Greg pulled his phone from his pocket, pulling up the contact list. "Anybody promising?" There was always somebody promising coming into the FBI Academy. The problem was that there was promising and then there was the kind of promising that would end up splattered on some sidewalk because Jack Crawford was still running himself into the ground over Clarice Starling.

He might have... nudged Will a little to say no more firmly. Just when it came up in conversation. Or maybe Will had had it after the last round because he wasn't pursuing Lecter and he wasn't going to help in a hunt that was insane. "From the roster? We've got top kids again, and I'm reserving judgment until after I see who doesn't pass out on the obstacle course."

"The obstacle course is a... Yes, hi. I'd like to place an order." Greg paused, listening to the person on the other end of the line. "Will Graham. Yes. Eight-oh-one North Madison, Building G, Apartment 2-D. Uh-huh. That's the right number. Family size order of fried rice and sweet and sour chicken. Oh, and hey, a large order of those cream cheese wonton things."

"I'm going to make you limp around the block with me for that." But yeah, Will liked it. Will was going to eat the cream cheese wonton things and pull faces and still love it. He wandered back, scruffing Mal's fur and making good boy noises while Greg called.

"Uh-huh. Twenty-eight-seventy-five. Right." A few more bits and pieces of conversation and he hung up, sticking his tongue out at Will. "I'll be glad to limp around the block with you. Well, or waddle after we eat all of that."

"I'm making you eat apples tomorrow." And making himself eat them, too, which did make Greg grin. Mal looked between them, tongue lolling happily like he wasn't sure who he wanted to hit up for scruffing more. "You just wait until the hiring process starts in the labs. It's like pulling teeth."

"And it takes forever." Greg settled down on the couch and was followed in short order by a big scruffy dog trying to lick him in the face. "Hey, hey, settle down!" One lick and it was enough, so he leaned back and started petting. "I applied for my position six months before I heard anything, never mind interviewed."

Will settled in beside him, looking just... a little tired. Muzzy maybe was a better word, which was nice because Will was relaxing. There was a book on the coffee table that actually seemed like light reading. "Yeah, but there was just... no arguing about you, really. You were the total package for it." And he knew Will enough to know it wasn't just flattery, even if it did make him feel kind of warm. "So, any interesting cases?"

"Nothing I'd wanna write home about. Well, nothing that isn't pretty twisted." Behavioral Sciences saw cases that would make most people want to go home and cry to their mothers. "How about you?"

"Prep work for teaching the incoming class Forensics technique." Which meant nothing was going on with Jack except his obsessive urge to run like a hamster on a wheel after Clarice. Jack had kids and he didn't pay that much attention to them. Greg would wonder if it was something sexual except it was obvious that it wasn't. "Have you done the tourist thing around here, yet?"

He laughed. "Are you kidding? And I'd have time for that... when, exactly?" It would be nice. They should plan something like that sometime soon. Trip to the Smithsonian or something. "Poppa and Isoäiti would send me to my room if they knew."

"This weekend?" It wasn't like D.C. wasn't right there, too. Begging for it. And Will was a lot more active, and Mal could live if he got the sofa to himself. 

Of course, by planning, Will had probably doomed himself to a horrible case, but planning never hurt anything. It was a shame neither of them was a precog. "Sure. National Mall, Botanical Gardens, Vietnam Memorial?"

"Whatever you want to see most," Will grinned. "I've never actually done the gardens. Or the spy museum."

"Oh, hey, yeah. Let's do that." How cool would the spy museum be? Gun lipstick tubes and laser cufflinks, or maybe he was confusing it with James Bond gadgets. Either way, it was kind of awesome. "So. What's on the slate for tonight, other than Chinese?"

"No idea?" At least Will looked sheepish when he said it. "I haven't planned anything, I'm at a stumped point in my research..." And there was spaghetti sauce cooking down on the stove.

Greg reached out, snagged the remote control and got a flash of Will, months ago, lonely, flipping through channels. "Jeopardy's on. We can always just be lazy or I could go home once we eat if you want time to work on your stuff for class."

Sometimes he wished he could do what Will did, just reach out and grab thoughts, because working out what Will was thinking just then would've been priceless. "Let's just be lazy. I have plenty of time to work on stuff for the class at work."

Yeah, but things didn't always work out exactly the way they were planned, so that probably meant he'd end up working on it after Greg went home. The fact that he was putting it off so they could spend time together made him squirm a little with the enjoyment. "I think that sounds good."

He flipped on Jeopardy, and dinner was maybe ten minutes out. It took all of three squares for him and Will to start trying to guess the answers before the buzzer rang out. There was a video double on when the doorbell rang and Will got up. "I'll get it."

"You sure?" He ran his fingers through Mal's fur, scratched the top of his head. "I've got a couple of twenties in my wallet."

"Museum admission," Will told him, digging into his own back pocket as he got the door. Anyway, Mal had him pinned in place, which made dogs the best excuse ever. _Can't move, the dog'll get upset._

The guy at the door didn't take long, and Will had bags full of fantastic smelling Chinese food. "Okay, Mal. Hit the road. The chicken is not for you, despite the fact that I know you're gonna want to eat it."

"If you're good, I'll get you a snack after." _Snack_ was just the magic word, and Mal moved to the recliner, tail wagging wildly as he crossed over to his other favorite piece of furniture.

"That dog is freakishly smart sometimes," Greg offered, taking the bag and starting to dig into it for containers and plastic forks. "I mean, you say snack after, and he knows you mean snack after. We had this dog when I was a kid, Sister Mary Frances Alouicious. I swear, she heard t-r-e-a-t and you'd have thought that only the winner of a big race would get one. She'd take off across the house and knock everybody out of the way to get to the cupboard before I could."

"How did you come to name her Sister Mary Frances Alouicious?" Will opened up the fried ride, and took a deep breath. "Damn that's good."

"Long story involving a Cheech and Chong skit and me being too young to really remember it. I got it confused with some other stuff and... mmmm. Oh yeah." His mouth was full, but so what? "Anyway. I've got an aunt who had this crazy little cat named Alouicious and apparently I thought that it would be awesome to name the lab that."

"What did you call her to get her to come? C'mere... Ally? Saint just sounds odd." Will offered him the fried rice to shovel himself a plateful first.

"Sissy, short for Sister," Greg offered, rummaging with the boxes. God, he was hungry. There was no way he was even going to try and use the chopsticks in the bag. "She definitely wasn't a saint."

"I don't think I've met a dog yet who's a saint." Sam was pretty close, from what Greg had picked up on, but that was still only close. The fact that he still tried to eat the mailman despite the rolling walker probably negated sainthood. "Mal still savages my clothes when I change the oil."

"That's because he loves you," Greg offered, forking a bite of chicken and handing over the remains of the rice. "I kind of like you, too. Y'know. You might be all right and stuff."

When Will passed him the little plastic wrapped fork, he felt a little frisson thought of want. Oh, wow. That was fresh and neat, in a way. "I'm glad to hear it. I'm kind of attached to you."

He couldn't keep himself from grinning at that. He'd known it, of course, but there was knowing and then there was _knowing_. "I guess that means we've got a little mutual admiration society going on, then. Cool."

"I'm not much good at that kind of thing." He was grinning, though, and nudging the deep fried cream cheese things at Greg while he sat back on the sofa and started to eat fried rice with chicken sitting on top of it.

"I dunno. I think you're probably better at it than you think you are," Greg offered, opening the extra cup of sweet and sour sauce and dipping a bite of chicken in it. "God, I was hungry."

Will looked like he was barely taking the time to chew his rice. "Mmm, I could live off of good takeout like this. I did for a while, but it's nicer... occasionally." Until he built up a good craving for the whatever the place did best.

Greg mostly didn't question Will's taste in food. His spaghetti sauce was damned good, but he didn't spend a lot of time in the kitchen. The reasons were obvious; Greg didn't think about them, Will didn't talk about them, and that was that. "So... Jeopardy, yeah?"

"I think we're losing." It got a huff of a laugh out of Greg, and he waved his fork while Will got up again, probably to get something to drink. Beer or soda and good delivery, and not too much drama or wondering what came next to worry about. 

What more could a guy ask for?

~*~*~*~

He'd been flooded with work the second he hit the door and he hadn't had five minutes alone to so much as piss since he'd gotten started, never mind meeting Will for lunch at the sub place. It wouldn't be that bad if anything was remotely interesting. It had mostly been investigative exemplars, more investigative exemplars, four missing persons and one possible kidnapping that would probably end up being called a missing person.

If somebody didn't bring Greg caffeine in very short order, he was going to stab someone in the eye, or at least handcuff the next tech who came by to the desk and go in search of a vending machine.

Will got the whole work came up thing more than anyone had since Gil so that was okay, but mostly he wanted a coke and a candy bar and five minutes to scarf down both before he went back to the exquisitely clean room where he was doing his processing.

If he got a chance to pee, that would be a win for him, too.

He'd figured out where the vending machines were the first day. He figured out where the best one was by the third, and so he waved at the guy in the next lab (something with a Z or a Q or maybe it was a J, except Greg hadn't had time to actually meet everybody, so he couldn't say for sure). There wasn't anything that couldn't hold on for another ten minutes, so he stripped off his gloves and headed down the hall in search of caffeine.

Caffeine and food. He needed something fast and good, but not Cheetos. Too messy, not enough time to really enjoy the fat content and the fake orangeness of it. It was good to stretch his legs, stretch his mind a little with new scenery. Anything that meant he wasn't cooped up, stuck in his little glass cage poking at test tubes was good with him.

Two lefts, a flight of stairs, and he might get lucky and swing outside long enough to peer longingly across the way at Will's building for ten seconds. Greg swung into the break room on the first floor and dug in his pocket for a couple of dollar bills.

Will was just on the cusp of making the move from greeting kisses and lingering touches to something more, and Greg was going to encourage and accept but not push. It was the most mature relationship decision he'd made since he'd not tackled his drunk boyfriend during grad school. Mostly because if Will freaked out... Greg just didn't really want to consider it too hard. He had plenty of reason to freak out, and that was the gospel truth. Greg didn't want to be associated with any kind of massive freak-out on his part because he kind of liked what they had going. He'd like for it to continue, too, so... yeah.

Hands off, letting Will make the move, but sort of feeling that it'd be soon. It was kind of a nice daydream while he waited for the soda machine to yield his coke. It was a funky, clear-fronted machine that ran the soda bottle through a ramp before dumping it out where he could reach it. Made for fewer spewing issues, probably, except who knew for sure? He hadn't noticed that it helped much, and so he unscrewed the top slowly, then screwed it back on to let the fizz go down before he unscrewed it altogether.

Next he moved to the snack machine and carefully eyeballed it. He was kind of starving, and while Cheetos were tempting, he decided to go for chili-cheese Fritos instead, and peanut M&Ms. Might as well have smelly, smelly breath. It wasn't like anybody was going to be smooching him anytime soon. Definitely not any of his fellow lab techs. He'd have to start seriously learning names in the next... well, sometime. Sometime soon, or else he'd be that asshole who never talked to anyone much. 

The M&Ms got stuck, and the machine had to be hip checked lightly to get it to give up the candy.

"Excuse me, do you know where the..."

Now he knew what a deer in the headlights felt like.

Shocked? Check. Unable to process? Check. Not sure what to say?

Oh, yeah.

The last he'd heard from Nicky, Gil was still in Costa Rica and still in love with Sara, even if it was from a distance because she'd gone back to work in Vegas. Greg had been secretly hoping that some kind of man-eating _Meet the Applegates_ bug might have their way with one of them.

"I, uh." Uh, and oh were about right, and Greg straightened out, still clutching onto his snacks. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"Yeah. I guess you could say that makes two of us." Not that he figured Gil had asked about him to know where he was or anything. It had been pretty clear how he felt about things when he'd walked out and gotten on a plane to South America. "So. Um."

The thing of it was that he looked good. He looked like he'd had a damn great time in South America, and Greg was glad his soda was capped because if it wasn't he would've squeezed it all over the floor he was holding onto the bottle so tight. "I'm teaching at one of the universities for a while."

"Huh." Greg licked his lips and fidgeted, trying to keep himself from stepping forward. It was stupid, the fact that he wanted to, despite everything. "Funny. I was under the impression you were camped out in some little bug haven near the Tropic of Cancer."

"Things..." Gil cleared his throat. "Didn't go the way I expected them to, Greg, and I'm sorry."

Funny, that. Greg was, too, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to reach out and touch him to be sure of it or not. The fact that he thought of touching before he thought of anything else was a sign of how long it had been since he'd been around Gil. That was something else that was different these days. Something that was different about him, and most of that was thanks to Will. "Yeah. I guess it's okay."

"I uh, don't suppose you could show me to the lab's record facility when you're done?" Gil at least looked sheepish, and Greg wasn't going to touch even if it was what he most wanted to do in the world, just to see what Gil felt.

Greg had been careful about that. He'd always thought the mystery was part of the fun, the not knowing, the romance of it. Funny how six months could change things. "To be honest, I'm kind of running tight on time. I could make a call and get somebody to show you where it is, though, if you'd like."

He watched Gil exhale, and then nod. "That sounds good. Are you, uh. Around here? I'd like to talk to you when you do have time." Well, that was seizing the moment for Grissom, he supposed.

Licking his lips, Greg nodded. "Right now, I'm busy running exemplars. You'd think FBI agents would be better about not sneezing on things. Plus, uh, missing persons, a couple of kidnappings... Maybe tomorrow?" Might as well get it over with as not.

"Sure." There was another noise, half an uh that didn't get fully uttered, and Gil was fishing in his back pocket for what ended up being a business card. "This is the best contact information. I know things..." Ended badly? Didn't end at all?

Left Greg with his crap in storage while he looked for another job. He took the card and tucked it into the pocket of his lab coat. "Yeah. They did." Worse than badly, considering how much it had sucked. "But I'm doing okay. I guess you are."

"I have classes and research." And no Sara. No Sara, no wedding in the jungle, and if the business cards weren't so new, he would've sensed that harder than he just guessed it.

"I'm glad you're doing okay." It wasn't like it was possible to stop loving somebody, even if they decided to walk on his heart on their way out the door. "Where are you teaching?"

"George Washington University. They have a forensics department that they're trying to expand." Thank god he wasn't one of the new hires they were fighting about there. Greg wasn't sure he could have taken it if Gil had said he was working there in Quantico.

Small favors. He had to be grateful for them. "So, um. I'm, it's good to see you." Good, yeah. Maybe good, definitely confusing as hell, because he had no idea what to do with Gil. What to say to him or how to deal with him, and that made Greg uncomfortable. He'd never felt that way before now, but then, he'd always been chasing after him before, somehow or another. "I was just running out of my lab for a few minutes, it's been crazy busy."

He really needed just to sit down and scarf his food, because the whole going outside and staring at the building where Will was? Total pipe-dream as long as Grissom was standing there, looking awkward. Great, as long as they were both riding the Uncomfortable Train, first class, apparently. "Do you like working here?"

If he daydreamed a rescue by Batman, would that help? Probably not. "Yeah. It's different. Different pace, similar procedures. I still get in the field now and then." Even if it was Crawford, who was Gil's weird polar opposite where his talents were concerned. "I still haven't had a chance to do the tourist thing here. A friend's showing me around this weekend." More than a friend, but that wasn't any of Gil's business.

"Good. The museums out here are supposed to be great. I'm still... settling, so I know how that feels." Or not. After all, Gil _settling_? Settling down, settling in, being approachable? Blowing off all of his friends in search of love that was weird and untenable. Even Brass kept in touch with Greg, and there was nothing about what Gil was up to. He'd never showed back up at the lab for a job even though Sara was back. Nick didn't talk about her much. Greg had figured he was probably trying to keep from hurting any feelings.

He'd appreciated that. Still, he'd really wished that he'd had some idea this was coming. "I'm glad you're settling in okay. I'm assuming it's a guest lectureship or...?"

"One year, possibly longer." If he wanted to. If he didn't want to go scurrying off in search of who knew what else. The last few years had probably been one huge mid-life crisis for Gil, and Greg wasn't sure if he fit in pre- or mid-crisis.

He started to scarf down M&Ms instead. "Hope you like it, then. I've got to..." He hooked a thumb back the way he'd come and shrugged. "The records facility is one building over. Third floor. Do you need me to call somebody to show you where it is?"

Greg could see Gil mentally plugging that into a map in his head, because Gil shook his head. "No, I think I can find it. I'll... talk to you later, then. It was good seeing you." Yes, yes, great, good, and maybe he'd leave now so that Greg could have a little mini-panic to go along with his Fritos and M&Ms.

"Nice to see you, too." Automatic, a social lie that would have been anything but that six months ago.

Jesus. What was he supposed to do about any of this, anyway? Was he expected to do anything? Could he just go home and crawl into bed and try and forget that Gil was even here? That probably wasn't healthy. Going to Will's would be better for him. At least he could hide with Mal there, and he'd never have to say a word about what was bothering him. Will would just know.

Will never probed, or did the _I'm reading your mind_ thing at people unless he was actively trying to be a creepy asshole, and it was kind of funny. He'd helped Will go grocery shopping about a week after he'd gotten out of the hospital, and there'd been one little old dude with a shopping cart who'd been following them that Will had given oogey boogey eyes to before doing the trick in his direction.

At least Gil finally left after Greg said that, leaving him alone with snacks and a sinking sense that he had no idea how to close out that chapter of his life. He'd thought it had closed itself. Things were over, done, and he was having a happy honeymoon life off with Sara.

He'd tried not to blame her. Gil made his own decisions, and he'd always been funny about how he was with Greg. He was funny about Greg's talents, and maybe that should have been a sign. Probably it should have been, Greg figured, heading back towards his lab, snacks and drink secreted in pockets so he'd have time to think. Time to try and make sense of things, anyway, although he was sincerely doubting how much sense he'd be able to make of anything.

Greg figured he could just run it around his head until the thoughts either settled or went spinning off because they just couldn't keep up. It wasn't as if there was really anyone to ask for advice -- not then, at the time, and not now, either. Will was sort of a relationship fuck up but sweetly aware of that fact, and Nick never ever wanted to think about Grissom and sex in the same sentence because he thought of him as a science-father figure.

That had always been funny to Greg. He'd never once thought of Gil that way, never. The time Gil had shoved FBI samples away and barked at him had made him rock hard, and that had been a pretty sure sign of the way things were swinging right there. It hadn't been the first time Gil had made his heart race, made his dick hard. It had just been one of the most memorable.

Things weren't the same now. They couldn't be, because Greg had invested himself in Grissom like an idiot and things hadn't worked out. That should be the end of things right there. So why did he feel so weird about Gil being in Virginia now? Especially when he had Will.

He'd never really closed it off, and that was something to ponder while he processed. It was sort of the first time he'd ever been dumped without getting a good hearty say-so in it, too. Usually he was the one who broke off, clearly, even when it was sort of winding up to an end. This time he hadn't gotten the chance. Hadn't really wanted to surrender the relationship.

Maybe it was time to sit back and think about that. About what it had meant to him, about what it still meant to him, about the best way to tuck it into a box and label it _done_. Finished, because fucking up the future over something that was in the past was ultimately moronic.

Thinking and walking obviously wasn't his strong suit, because he stepped out of the stairwell and nearly bowled a guy right off of his feet. "Ah, geeze. I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention."

The guy grinned at him, all slinky hotness, and huh. Okay, but there was being involved and there was being dead, and clearly anybody who saw this guy and didn't automatically register that he was hot was deceased. "No problem. They said there were scientists around here. I should've been watching out for that to happen."

Just, damn. Fresh shaved, nice eyes, rocking the suit and tie in a way that definitely screamed to Greg that he still cared about how he looked to the rest of the place. Oh, there were a couple of guys there who looked like they were still deeply involved in looking snappy, but most of them looked like Jack. Suit that'd seen too many dry cleanings, check, tie that someone bought them for father's day, check, shoes that were held together with polish, check.

"I know this is going to sound weird, but I've been sent over here to find a Greg Sanders. Mr. Graham wants him to touch my dog-tags." Oh, wow, there six months and he was already getting asked to haze the new guys?

"Well, if Mr. Graham's asking nicely..." It must be interesting if Will sent him, all hazing aside. Besides, Greg would never pass up an opportunity at something interesting so he held out his hand with a grin. "Hand them over."

He'd gone down to the vending machines without gloves because he'd finally gotten used to the place -- no flashes of anger or panic or anybody going off the deep end -- so he was prepared for most anything when they hit his palm.

Almost anything.

This was different than anything he'd expected. There was _space_ , and people running, and a sense of panic and adventure mixed together and oh, oh, shit, those things were _not_ human. There were too many memories, tangled up together, but there were _not_ human things, and guns, and so much laying cover fire, and then Afghanistan? What the hell.

No wonder Will sent him over. His head was pounding from so many flashes, but it was completely worth it. "You must be the new tactical training guy," he offered, trying to hide the fact that he was a little wobbly after that. There were others, crowded at the edges of the rubber silencers, and Greg tried to push them back because... _not human _, holy shit, but also space and a city of spires and Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass that was breathtaking.__

__One word sang from every single flash of the past._ _

___Atlantis_._ _

__Oh, wow. And the guy was staring at him, half-reaching for his dog-tags back. "Yeah. And I'm guessing you're psychic?" He didn't sound mean about it, just curious, watching Greg, and knowing that he knew about a place called Atlantis that was probably the most beautiful thing Greg had ever seen._ _

__There was no way to stop the spread of his grin, because just seeing those things (he didn't think about the _not_ human parts) was enough to give anybody a jolt of adrenalin, and the city spread out in memory was breathtaking. "Yeah. There are a few of us at Quantico." Him, Will, a precog in the secretarial pool who wasn't spectacularly gifted in that arena, but who had a truly amazing ability to filter out bullshit and did things to databases that made Greg's eyes cross. There were a couple of others, but Greg didn't know them all that well. "That was.... really something."_ _

__"And Mr. Graham's psychic, too?" He was grinning as he shook his head and slipped his dog-tags back over his wild hair, squirming his shirt collar open a little to get them back and settled in. "They just don't account for psychics in the non-disclosure agreements."_ _

__"Which, I've gotta tell you, seems a little short-sighted." Greg licked his lips and then held out his hand. "So, it's nice to meet you, Colonel Sheppard. Also, I really hope those... things, or whatever, are being kept far, far away from here. Right?"_ _

__"Oh, yeah, yeah, everything's fine. Nothing to worry about, they're going for hamburgers and stuff now. It's great. And it's good to meet you, Sanders. Now I have to find my way back to the other office."_ _

__Because of course Will would think it was awesome to send him, never mind that it was two buildings over and up a flight of stairs. "It's not too hard. If you go down these stairs, and take a left, it'll take you right out front. Will's building is across the way." It didn't hurt to be helpful to the really hot guy, because, wow, he was good looking. Movie star good looking. Beat out Top Gun good looking. Also, taller than Tom Cruise. Taller was always nice._ _

__"Thanks. Good to meet you." Then he was clattering down the stairs sort of casually, and Greg was left watching him go._ _

__Hot alien-fighting Air Force Colonel. Well. That kind of made up for the full-blown suck of Gil showing up at Quantico, especially since that was the place Greg had gone to get away from the thought of him. Maybe it didn't make up for it entirely, but Greg was opportunistic and he'd take what he could get._ _

__It was going to be a hell of a weird day, though._ _

____

~*~*~*~

Greg had said he was tired and going to go home and sleep, and Will had picked enough off of him to nod and make noises and suggest he come by Friday after work with Mal and food so they could plot for the weekend. Thursdays were weird days, and that little shiver he'd picked up off of Greg said it all -- the thing with the new guy was cool, the thing with the old boss was not cool.

It was a good thing they weren't at summer camp. He knew whose bed he'd be short-sheeting.

Instead he'd stopped by the house and fed Mal, snagged a sandwich, and gone looking for the guy. Maybe it wasn't any of his business, but it kind of was at the same time. It was making his kind-of-except-not-yet boyfriend unhappy, and that wasn't exactly legitimate for Will. He liked to keep the people important to him happy, which was probably his whole issue with Jack because keeping Jack's crazy type A ass happy required an act of God. 

Hunting down Greg's ex was easy. Anyone who had access to the research files had to sign in, and they were approved, and then it was just a matter of working out where he was employed and working backwards.

Will was very, very good at working backwards, and it turned out Grissom had an evening class at GWU. From there, it was just a matter of putting a leash on the dog and heading out to his Chevy to take the trip over and wait. He was pretty good at that, too, and once he located the right building, he sat on a bench outside and tossed a ball to the dog until he got sick of it.

Then Mal clutched it in his teeth and just sort of lolled there, working between clutching and not clutching, and wondering why the ball rolled away when he let go. Dogs were great for that, working things through, experimenting. Mal liked the fresh air and the new scenery and the fact that they'd been in the car for almost an hour to get there.

He had a book with him so he wasn't bored in the meantime. There was plenty yet to do -- classes to arrange, the first time the new tactical guy crushed his students, and he would. It was amusing, and he hoped that sending him to see Greg had at least made his day a little better all things considered because the pictures, the memories, were beautiful. Some people's minds left Will feeling dirty, and this guy was just... above board. Guilty over things he didn't need to be, but above board, impressively so, and his memories, his views on people he knew and missed and still had in his life, were beautiful. Atlantis was beautiful, and it was voyeuristic of Will, but he did enjoy moments like that, where he could experience something that way. He'd be sorting through the pieces he'd pulled up for days, weeks maybe, now and again, idly, like daydreams, pushing out some of the lingering pieces of Pranos he'd taken with him.

Eventually, he'd get past that. He knew that because he'd gotten past Lecter, he'd gotten past Dolarhyde, and he'd get past this. He didn't even wonder anymore where Lecter had left Kolya, dead as dead could be. Will had seen it, a flashing image inside Greg's skull, and that was enough for him. Maybe it was a sign that he hadn't ever really gotten Hannibal out of his head. Maybe he should be worried, but Will had long since learned to live with his oddities, dance around the memory-places that were dangerous for him and bypass those possibilities. What he was doing now was perilously close to a couple of them, but he thought it needed doing, and so there he sat, him and Mal. When class let out, he was still sitting there, waiting. Waiting and watching and considering what exactly he was doing. He wasn't much of a plotter. He just went with the moment, rode with it, reacted and acted and once he saw the guy come out of the building, he'd come up on him. Better than going into the building to find him and possibly missing him while he was wondering around in there.

Half an hour later, he was starting to think Grissom must have left by some other entrance and wondering if he should give up and go home. Mal's head shot up, and Will glanced down for just a second. "You ready to give it up and head home?"

One short bark came -- not an answer, but a bark towards the building, and Will looked up to see him walking out the door.

That... was interesting. It was a bit like watching a sideways glimpse of oneself in the mirror, before he'd decided just to get a short short haircut and stick with it for ease of care. He started to stand up, reaching down to take the ball from Mal. For a second, he thought he wouldn't get it, but then Mal let go and struggled his way up, so Will threw the ball to cross the guy's path.

Mal took off after it, just as if his hips weren't wiggling out of line, and stopped Grissom in his tracks. He didn't say anything, just peered through his glasses at Mal as if he was something interesting, then looked Will's way.

"Hi. He's kind of rambunctious." Which was true, but completely uninvolved in the conversation and this? This was fascinating and maybe only particularly obvious when he was standing right there looking at him. "Doctor Grissom, right?"

"Yes. And you are?" He didn't seem wary, exactly, but interested. Yes. He was that, and Will knew that he was seeing the same thing that he was. The lack of surprise in him was strange, but maybe curiosity was his way of being surprised.

He wasn't going to reach out yet, and it was sort of novel not to have people's thoughts forced on him all the time for the first time in forever. As long as he focused. "Will." He figured he'd roll out with the rest of it, because if he said agent, Grissom was going to get it.

Mal came back, slobbery tennis ball in his mouth, and dropped it at Grissom's feet. "Nice to meet you," the man offered, and he wasn't sure if Gil meant him or if he meant the dog. He leaned down, picked up the ball, and tossed it again. "I have a dog at home. Hank. He doesn't look as happy as yours."

"Mal's a great dog. He was hit by a car, so he's kind of a rescue fixer-upper." Will watched Mal and then tilted his head to look at Gil because there was no way to fake that this was a coincidence. "So, you and Greg, huh?"

There was a flash on his face, quick, and then gone. "I take it that you know him, then. You're the friend who's going to take him sight-seeing."

"Yes," Will confirmed, leaning down when Mal came back with his ball. "So I'm sort of curious about what you're doing in the area here, _running into_ Greg."

Grissom steeled himself visibly, and his mind did the same. It was interesting, because most people couldn't keep anything back from Will. Innate talent, maybe? Never used? "I had a chance to help build the forensics program here. Seeing Greg was pure chance."

Now that he felt the steeling, Will started to press, and was amused that there was actual resistance. Huh! "Well, he's doing pretty well here. Stretching his talents, settling in. Whatever isn't settled between the two of you..."

"Is something that's exactly that. Between the two of us. If you'll excuse me, I think Hank would like to be let out now. Have a good evening, Agent....?"

"Graham. And no, what I was going to say is that whatever isn't settled between you two is because you're an ass, and after everything Greg's done for me, I'm not going to let you harbor some fantasy that you can use him as your backup plan now that you running off to Costa Rica after Sara has failed to work out."

The way he blanched and then flushed, starting in his ears, was satisfying. More than satisfying. "Then I suppose you and I will have to agree to disagree. I'd appreciate it if you didn't come to ambush me here anymore, Agent Graham."

"Oh, not a problem. I just wanted to get a look at you myself, see what I was dealing with. Get a feel for your head. For someone so damn against psychics that you nearly gave Greg a complex about it, your mental walls are impressive. You might want to ask yourself what that's about." He bounced the ball on the sidewalk, and Mal's head bobbed to follow it when Will caught it. "C'mon, Mal, time for a car ride."

He left him standing there, Mal waddling along behind him. The sense of accomplishment probably didn't say anything good about him, but Will had long since come to accept those things.

On the way home, he decided to go past Greg's. He stopped and picked up a dozen doughnuts and thought he'd have to fight Mal off of them, but he seemed pretty pleased to keep gnawing on his ratty tennis ball. The ratty tennis ball had been new places, after all, and tasted like grass and Mal liked that. Dogs, if someone asked Will to be honest, had the best brains to float around in. He parked up at the other end of Greg's parking lot where the free unmarked spaces were so he wouldn't get towed, and scratched the top of Mal's head. That was enough of a sign to get him shuffling towards the door, Will balancing doughnuts and a leash until Mal managed to get out.

The dog knew the way to Greg's apartment and he moseyed along, making his way at his own pace. Will kept up with him, slow and steady, and both of their knees creaked as they made their way to the second floor.

That was the price he paid for having survived so long with that lifestyle. Not that being kidnapped and tortured was a lifestyle, Will supposed, because everything had been roundly fucked up since then. Knees, back, stomach, the weird patches of skin that had healed over with donor tissue from a corpse that made Will glad that he couldn't pick things up by touch, even though it was gone now and he was all him again. Or integrated. He was always integrating, new experiences, new memories, thoughts and chunks of time that weren't his.

When they got to the top, he fumbled with his keys to find the one to Greg's apartment. It never occurred to him to knock, or maybe he wanted to see what Greg got up to when he wasn't around. He wasn't getting anything much by way of familiar thoughts, so he opened the door and called inside. "Hey. You alive in here?"

He got a little worried when there was no immediate answer, but three steps in after the door was shut proved there was no need to be. Greg was sprawled out on his couch asleep with the remote control on his chest.

Okay. Okay, that was good, then. That was okay, and not worrying, and maybe he could just leave the doughnuts and a note and leave because Greg looked exhausted and asleep hard. There weren't even dreams yet. He didn't like it, though. Didn’t like the quality of that exhaustion, the way he seemed heavy just lying there, as if the weight of the world had landed on him somehow.

Mal took the question out of it by sidling forwards and putting a paw on the couch, leaning down and licking Greg in the face. The smell of his breath was enough to get Greg's attention, and he came awake muzzily, shaking his head to get away. "Huh. Mal, don't... oh, gross."

"Sorry." It was hardly a murmur. "I came by to see if you were up and Mal decided to say hi first."

Greg's smile was lazy, sleepy, tempting. "Wouldn't have minded if you'd said hello something like that."

"I don't know, if I wake you up by licking your face, run." He popped the doughnut box open. "I come bearing food if you want to snack and then go fall asleep in a real bed."

"Oh, hey, wow. Doughnuts." Sitting up, Greg rubbed his face and stifled a yawn. "Today kind of sucked. You've been part of all the bright spots."

"I thought you'd want to see the Colonel's past. It was beautiful. I usually dread doing this at interviews, but he's going to be a great tactical instructor and he's a good person." He had his worries about himself, but at his heart, he was an amazing person, and Will wished there was a way to say that to the man. "Atlantis. Wow. It makes everything we do here seem tiny."

Greg reached for one of the jelly-filled doughnuts and nodded. "Yeah, no kidding. Even with those not-human things, it was just beautiful. Like something Frank Lloyd Wright would dream about, you know? Except crystallized." He leaned up and out a little, close to Will. "Thanks."

"Impossibly complex and impossibly beautiful. Just knowing that something like that is out there..." Will shrugged and picked up a chocolate covered one. "Made my day. And he was already having daydreams about courses he wants to spring on the first class."

"Cool enough that I'll want to be in on them?" Greg had raspberry jelly on his lips now, swallowing the first bite, and Will both wanted to kiss him and didn't want to, all at once.

"Cool enough that I think we've all agreed that when the first class goes through them, everyone is invited to watch," Will drawled. "It'll be like Manassas." Oh, he wanted to, just to lean in and feel him, and the urge felt like he was swaying in.

At first, Greg kind of blinked at him, and it dawned on Will that maybe people outside of the deep South didn't pay that kind of attention to the American civil war. Then he seemed to get it, because he drawled, slow and low, "Cooool."

It startled Will, made him laugh. "Showing my Louisiana, lived in Virginia too long side, huh?" That was a priceless facial expression, Will decided.

"Yeah." Greg licked his lips clean and grinned back at him. "It took me a while to figure out what you meant, but then I made that connection right there. You should show me around some of those old battlefields and stuff sometime."

"You might regret that." And the moment was lost, but Greg had a wicked glint in his eyes like he knew what Will had been thinking about doing. "I had a roommate when I got here who decided that they were best paired with every Civil War movie in existence."

"Every one? That's a special kind of masochism right there, I think." It had been, too, in ways Will tried never to remember. "I don't think I'm all that into things. Historical sites are awesome, but movies with lots of people getting shot in a historical context? Not all that awesome in large doses."

"No. Not awesome in small doses, actually. They even threw a British guy into one of them for comedic effect." Will lifted his eyebrows as he chewed slowly on his doughnut. "So, I'll get out of here. You look tired."

He could tell what Greg was thinking before he said it. "You could stay. I would appreciate the company if you don't mind me falling asleep on you."

Stalking down Greg's ex had been a better plan than he'd banked on. Will knew the curve of his smile had to look goofy, but Greg meant sleep and that... that sounded so good. "I kind of like the idea."

"Good." Good, and then he closed his eyes and leaned forward just enough to make it an invitation.

Oh, he wanted it, and didn't hesitate this time, leaning in to kiss Greg, setting his doughnut down on the coffee table and sliding his hand to Greg's side just to feel him. There was a little sensation of reverb because he'd never really learned how to lock down his senses when he kissed, so it was a little him kissing Greg and Greg kissing him all at once.

It was nice, sweet, nothing that was asking for more in it, but still there was that sense of banked heat, steadily restrained desire. He couldn't tell if that was him or if it was Greg, but there was something delicious about it all the same. Something that said this, whatever it was between them, would turn out to be spectacular with time.

When they finally pulled apart, he was left with a sugary-sweet sense of lips and tongue, the lingering taste of doughnuts on his mouth.

"I've been waiting for that."

Yes. Yes, absolutely, and Will stayed close, mouth still near Greg's. "That... was better than I imagined."

"Huh." Greg's breath puffed out over his. "Funnily enough, I think the same thing. Considering how much time I've spent imagining it...."

Will leaned in, closed the tiny space again. Sleep, Greg needed to sleep, sure, but kisses that tasted sweet and that pent up urge for more that one or both of them had were a fantastic way to close out the day.

"Mmmm." He'd missed that sound of enjoyment, hadn't even known that he missed it. Hadn't even heard it before, and that was a funny loop in his head, too, but an enjoyable one, so he just let go and let Greg kiss him again, and then one more time before they both pulled back at the same moment. "Hi again."

That bright-eyed look was exactly right. That was what Greg should look like, not like the tired person in his body fifteen minutes ago.

"Hi." He was going to do anything, anything to keep that bright look right where it was.

"I could make a call for something healthy. We could eat and fall asleep in front of the TV. Just.... stay."

"I'll rummage around in your fridge and see what I can come up with." The breakfast of champions could sit in the bottom of the fridge, and he was definitely going to stay.

"That sounds perfect."

Yeah. It really did.

~*~*~*~

Jack had been leaving him alone, which made Will's skin crawl, though he was going to be the last person to admit it, because as long as he could focus on the upcoming courses, well. He wanted to. He had everything written out, and now it was just a matter of watching the new guy flip through his hiring paperwork like he was lost.

"You'd think I'd be used to crazy paperwork by now," Sheppard said, mouth twisting into a wry smile. "Not so much. This makes me miss Lorne. My XO was a paperwork demon."

Will stood up, pushed back from his desk, and wandered towards Sheppard's classroom. There was a small space between their rooms, not much, just enough to grade papers in if they needed it. He must have been using it to eyeball the forms. "That must've made it easier for you. You get used to this brand of paperwork pretty quickly."

"Yeah, well, it could be worse. Requisitions between bases as far apart as ours and the main base here can be a little, uh..." He shrugged and turned to go back into his classroom, Will following along. "So how are your students shaping up? Just so I know what to expect."

"Oh, I get a different crowd most of the time." He leaned against the doorjamb, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I do one teaching area for the groups you'll be getting, just forensics collection for numbskulls. It's great, and I love it."

Sheppard laid his paperwork down on a student desk and shook his head. "Do I get to audit any of these things? I probably should have asked earlier. Sounds kind of cool." He perched on the edge of one of the desks. "I mean, forensic collection for numbskulls could be pretty useful."

"You get time, and you don't have workload issues, audit away. Run it past the director, but he'll say yeah. The more you know around here, the better." He had a funny posture, practiced relaxation, and Will caught himself trying to not-mirror it, because he wasn't ever really relaxed. He hadn't been since Dolarhyde, and Kolya had made it that much more impossible.

Sheppard laughed. "Yeah. I've got a friend who's working on a project for DARPA right now. He's of the general opinion that the more you know, the better, period. And nobody knows as much as he does."

"Yeah, well. Keep him away from me, I don't think my head could take much more." That was the problem and the upside of students. They were new, and there were so many of them. He could remember their names with effort, and much more easily remember their current or most recent girlfriend and their family troubles and whether they wanted to get cable or string it out with antennas.

The glance Sheppard shot him was filled with a funny kind of sympathy. "Yeah, I don't think I'd expose anybody to McKay who didn't have to be. Considering your talents and the like." Never mind that flash of ass, and really, it was a very nice ass. Will could appreciate it, especially knowing that it didn't mean Sheppard was thinking of him as one. "So, Got any advice for a guy starting out?"

"Scare them," Will drawled. "Put fear into them. It'll keep them alive."

If he hadn't been a telepath, he never would have registered the dark flit of thought that crossed Sheppard's mind on his face. "I can get behind that. I've got a week of class planned, even if it's probably crap, and then I thought I'd take 'em out for some training week after next."

"Coordinate with their range instructor, see where they are so you know what you can expect. But yeah. It'll take some of the new job, hurrah off of them." But they needed that. They needed the gut-punch, and the fear, and the knowledge sooner rather than later that it wasn't all fun and games and new stuff to learn. And there was a faint echo of the same feeling from Sheppard that made Will feel sated, because yeah, they'd hired the right guy. "And let me know. I want to watch."

He enjoyed the way the guy grinned, seemed pleased with himself. "That sounds like a plan. It'll be next Tuesday morning. Figure it's probably best to get to it while it's still plenty cool. I went out to check in with the range instructor. There's plenty of high ground to work with."

"Good. I'm not allowed to take part in the tactical sims, so watching is the next best thing." Mind-reading was like cheating, he supposed, and it messed with the kid's heads to be against a mindreader, they said. Mostly, it messed with Will's head to be in a fight that wasn't do or die.

"Yeah, it'd have to suck, fighting a guy who can read what you're gonna do next. Hopefully I'm not getting too old to make sure that they know it sucks even if they're fighting a guy who can't. My knees give me fits, but I figure they're still good enough to get through this."

"Yeah, the mind-reading thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. My knees are still together, though, and you'll be great at this." He stretched a little, felt a shift down the hallway.

It was uncomfortable, knowing who was coming. If he'd been lucky, it would have been Greg taking a break. Luck had nothing to do with his life, though, so it wasn't all that surprising to recognize Jack's thoughts along with his footsteps. They were tired, old, and they didn't feel healthy.

Will shifted, and maybe John was aware that he wasn't there, that he'd moved on, and he was turning to look at Jack already. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't be hostile, Jack."

He looked as bad as he'd seemed in Will's head. "I'm not here to ask for anything, Will. I'm just checking on things. Nothing sinister."

Sheppard cleared his throat. "I'll, uh...."

Will waved to him and stepped back towards his own office. "Uh-huh. Hey, have you got some oceanside real-estate in Vegas to sell me, too?"

"Jesus, Will. At least cut me some slack." Yeah, he could do that. Making things easy for Jack never helped, though. It inevitably snuck up on him and bit him in the ass, and ended up with him trying to bleed out somewhere on a floor. "I'm just... checking in with you."

Yeah, and Sheppard was being nice about things, cutting off his classroom and office despite what must be overwhelming curiosity.

"And here I am," Will declared. "What do you want?"

The welter of things that sprung up were complex, thick and rich and unknowable despite the fact that Will felt them. "What do you think I want?"

"It's not a cup of coffee or a nice microbrew." Will didn't reach hard, didn't try.

Jack looked at him, and Christ. He was tireder than Will had ever known him to be. "You know what, Will? Fuck you."

"You always act like this is harder on you than it is on me." Will leaned against his desk. "Like I haven't done everything, every case you wanted me to."

"I'm not here to ask you for anything. You can look and see. I don't give a shit."

Then why the hell was he there? "No, I don't want to. I like talking." It made things more real, more concrete. He needed that, badly in his everyday life. It made more sense. Made things tangible, so that he could handle them.

"I just wanted to ask if you're doing okay. Check on Sanders. Make sure he's not scarred for life."

"Yeah. I'm doing okay, and Greg's been okay. His ex is in town, but it's normal crap." He rubbed at the side of his face. "Greg's kind of keeping me balanced."

Jack nodded. There was something so off about him, so wrong. but Will couldn't put his finger on it. "Good. I've been careful not to get in his way. Not to send him anything that would make things difficult."

He wanted to know what it was that was off, different, wrong, but it just wasn't... touchable. "I'm pretty sure he appreciates it. How've you been?"

The way he shrugged felt off, weird. Uncomfortable. "I'm okay. I just... thought I should come by. Apologize for not being around. For asking too much, before, but the kid's stepped out of the lab for a few minutes. Figured I should see you first."

"Yeah, well." He was shit at this, and that was why Molly had used to call him an asshole as an endearment. "Thanks for not giving up on me."

"I never would. I've been a bastard sometimes, and I've maybe asked for too much. I've made you give up too much, and that's put both of us here. So... giving up on you, it's not an option." His chin tilted up a little, echoing some of the forcefulness of the past.

Hell, they were a pair. Fucked up workaholics who fought themselves as much as they fought each other, and Will's first reaction was always rage that softened down oddly fast. There was something disarming about Jack, and Jack knew it. And Jack... never gave up, which reminded him they hadn't talked since the hospital. He'd probably tipped Jack into a tailspin with that comment. That, that was the other thing he was picking up off of Jack, then. "I wish you could give up on Clarice."

"I've never given up on you. I don't know if I can live with myself if I give up on her." Jack licked his lips. "You think she's..." Dead, he didn't ask. Will knew what he meant, though.

"I think she's living a dream life in a beautiful city. I think she's in Milan or Paris or Venice or Athens, and she's going to the opera and her world is a perfectly sculpted, lovely thing. I think Hannibal is a few years from dying of natural causes, at the most, and she'll take the money and carry on. She may or may not have had a child by now." It was everything he'd shielded Jack from, but Jack didn't need the shielding or didn't want it anymore.

Something in him seemed to crack at that with a near audible sound. He and Phyllis had a couple of kids, but Jack had never been close to them. For some reason, he'd taken on Clarice and treated her like he'd never treated his daughter. "Jesus, Will." Jesus, and obviously he hadn't really wanted to know. Not really, but he'd asked, and Will had told. "Jesus Christ."

He looked so old.

"I'm sorry, Jack. She's well, but she's... not the Starling you lost." And he'd almost taken that offer. He'd almost taken it up, except if he'd said yes to Hannibal there would've been a killing path in their wake, and that was the difference between them. Hannibal had been the only person to try to make his ability a weapon, to force his mind and empty it at someone else instead of just reading, sensing, touching memories. God knew what he did with Clarice's luck.

And there was Jack, looking grey in the afternoon light. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything. Probably he shouldn't have said anything, but it was why Jack had come. Sure, to apologize, to check on Greg, because he hadn't really done more than walk by the lab and glance in. Will knew. "You seem very certain."

"I'm certain. If I wanted to, I could find her, verify it for you, but I'd either be coming back in a body bag or not coming back at all. Mostly, I'd just rather work."

Teach kids not to get shot, to do field forensics the way it should be done. Enjoy dinner with Greg and see what happened when Sheppard took his paintball gun into the field with the trainees. It might not be much of a life, but it was his life, one way and another.

Jack took in a deep breath, nodded. "I'll make sure that you can do that, Will. I owe you that much."

"The new tactical guy is going to take the trainees out with paintballs on Tuesday," Will offered. "If you're not up to your neck in work, you should come see. How've your kids been?" Probably not around as much since their mother died. Will supposed if he'd known his father, he would've pushed the man away after his mother had died.

"Doing okay. Got a couple of grandkids. We see each other holidays." Things were awkward between them, and there wasn't any fixing it. Will could tell. "I've got to be in deposition most of the rest of the week. Maybe I'll get by."

"See if you can make it. We'll get dinner, get shit-faced, disappoint my dog and my maybe-boyfriend, and pass out on the lawn like old times deserved." He lifted his eyebrows at Jack.

"Maybe-boyfriend?" It was good to get a smile from Jack, even if it was half-baked, not quite as it should be. "I'd say you move fast but... the kid?" Yeah.

"Greg. He's no lightweight and he knows what he's getting into." Maybe not the depth of Will's struggles with himself, but being around people who were happy, who wanted to be happy in general, made his own day to day existence easier. He could ride off of it, and like faking a smile it pretty soon was 100% the real thing. Goofy fun was contagious.

"I'll do my best to come by," Jack promised, and in that moment, maybe he meant it. Will knew he wouldn't see him, though. "I need to get back to my office. I'll see you around."

"Yeah. You should look into taking a vacation, Jack." It wasn't much of a parting shot, but Will reached for the thought, a distant frisson of a frisson, riffed off of memory from Greg. "I've heard Rio's beautiful all year long."

"Maybe when all of the depositions are done," Jack offered. "I'll think about it."

"All right. I'll see you on Tuesday, at least." But he wouldn't. Still. Still, he and Jack were a complicated mess and he wondered if he should feel bad that he'd given Jack a direction that could maybe be his death. 

Then again, Jack should've died after Phyllis died, and Will should've been dead about fifteen years ago. That either of them were still standing was a god-damned miracle. Lung cancer apparently didn't go for the ones it should.

Jack waved at him and headed off down the hall. Will wondered, then if he'd ever see him again. Wondered what would happen between now and tomorrow, next week. He wasn't a precog. He didn't have any answers.

He'd just have to wait, and see.

And hope.

~*~*~*~

So, Will was going to kill some research and possibly have a whole plan for the next day, which started at picking him up at eight in the morning after he'd walked and placated Mal long enough to make a day trip on a Saturday to museums and stuff in D.C. That left Greg to handle Dinner with Grissom.

If he could just close it all down, call it an end, and really get it wrapped up, then Greg decided he could call it a productive way to end a Friday, but he didn't figure any of that would really happen over dinner. Gil would try and be nice, maybe, and try and talk him into giving him another chance or something, and Greg would have to figure out a way to do this without being a complete dick.

He wasn't sure Gil deserved that. Not really, but he knew he'd give it a shot anyway, so he'd called and told Gil to meet him at a Turkish place a few miles from his apartment, and he'd made himself get up and go.

It was a nice funky place. One of his co-workers swore by it, and wolfed down a whole plate of hummus and bread in about ten minutes when he'd dragged Greg there to play poke the new guy with a stick. Gil was new to the area, so Greg figured he'd be there a little late.

Gil was almost always a little late, usually because there was a case somewhere. Towards the end, Greg had started to believe he was just that forgettable. Now he thought it was more that he'd been holding things against Gil that were kind of pointless. He hadn't meant them the way Greg had taken them. He'd just been Gil about it -- weird and random and forgetful.

He'd been sitting there eating pita and baba ghanoush for about fifteen minutes when the bell on the front door rang, and he looked up to see Gil coming into the restaurant.

Gil saw him and smiled, starting towards Greg's table after a quick word with the guy who did the seating, serving, and order taking who tried to put Gil on the other side of the room.

"Hey," he said, waving his fork in the general direction of the other seat. "I figured it'd take you a while to find the place."

"The traffic here is more like L.A. than Vegas." Gil grimaced when he said it, and sat down. "Sorry."

"Nah, it's okay. I calculated in time for you being late. I wasn't waiting long. Have some, it's good." He pushed the plate over towards Gil's side of the table. "The lamb shank's pretty awesome, and the chicken florentine is good. I'm kind of in love with the Mediterranean delight, though. "

"Have you ordered yet?" Gil reached to try a little, smiling at him.

"Nah. I figured I'd wait until you got here." That and he figured maybe they wouldn't end up eating, depending on how things went and just how pissed Gil got about things. "Have a look at the menu."

"Thanks. So, how do you like it here? Making friends, do you miss the field....?" Gil just ducked right in, like things were okay with them. Like they could possibly just be okay, easy, magic.

"I'm seeing somebody. Actually. And kind of trying to stay out of the field. The head of Behavioral Sciences dragged me out the first week or so I was here. Well. More like I volunteered." He'd never regretted it, either. "Since then, I'm kind of glad to stay in the lab. It was a rough case."

"You had rough cases in Vegas." And right off the bat, Gil was trying to pep talk him?

Greg shook his head. "None of us ever shot a rapist in the back of the head because he wouldn't stop, Gil. I'm okay in the lab right now."

It was almost worth it to watch Gil's mouth fall open a little, staring at Greg. "I, uh. I didn't know." And it had been over the top, they could've pulled the guy off, but really, no one asked. And no one thought anyone was weird or bad for doing it. There was no moral handwringing.

"Yeah, well. It's just different here. Different expectations." He licked his lips. "I'm useful in a lot of ways here. Back home...." It wasn't home anymore, but somehow it still was. Funny, that. "I needed to be somewhere other than Vegas. You left me with the dog, Gil. The fucking dog."

"I know. I just... I wasn't thinking, and I know I made some bad decisions." Gil glanced down at the menu, at the table top. "Nick took good care of Hank after you left. I've got him back. He'd probably get along with Mal."

He tried to keep himself from asking how in the hell Gil knew about Mal. He'd ask Will later, find out what the hell that meant. It was better than opening up that can of worms here and now. "They're both good dogs. I'm sure they would."

Gil gave another tight smile that eased to something closer to real. "I'm sorry, that was uncharitable. One of your friends paid me a visit on campus last night, and it startled me."

That explained the doughnuts then. Funnily enough, he hadn't noticed anything odd about Will's evening. Going to see Gil hadn't been important enough to register somehow. "Yeah. Will's a good guy." 

"He's worried about you." Gil smiled again, and the waiter-type came over. "I'm glad you already have people who worry about you."

"Are you ready to order?" 

Yeah, Greg was ready to order and run because Gil was being Gil, the way he was, the way he had been, and it was freaking him out a little. Possibly a lot because there were weird similarities between him and Will -- the shape of their noses, the set of their eyes, something about their shoulders. It was just disturbing, and he hadn't noticed it until Gil had shown up in his life again. "Um..."

But now that he was face to face with it? What the hell.

"Sure." Gill tipped the menu towards Greg and yeah, there was no running for the door.

It was going to be a long night no matter what he did so he went ahead and ordered the lamb because he liked it and hoped that the conversation wouldn't give him indigestion. He waited until the waiter had gone back towards the kitchen before he cleared his throat and shifted a little uncomfortably in his chair. "So. How long are you going to be at George Washington?"

"I'm here for a year. I needed time to... think about what happened and what I did." And at a university, where he could be as awesomely Gil as he wanted to, with students to eat up words of wisdom that left Greg feeling raw at the edges.

He nodded, and went back to fiddling with his baba ghanoush. "I hope you weren't thinking things with us were gonna get better. I mean, don't get me wrong, I was looking for that for a while. Just.... not anymore." He couldn't meet Gil's eyes, because that was true. It was true, but somewhere in the core of him, it wasn't true, too.

He was a mess, and that was the problem if he wanted to go anywhere with Will, because he was all hung up with Gil, still. If Gil wanted to put the effort on hard then he'd probably crumble, and Greg knew it. He just hoped Gil didn't. "I know. I came out here because... There was work. And it was a change. I know we didn't end well."

"None of us did." It had been hell to live through, and it was still not all that great when he thought about it. "But it's over now. I can't... we can't...."

"I still miss you. At least, I want to keep in touch with you as a friend." Oh, like that ever, _ever_ , in the history of breakups had worked? It went to friends and they drifted apart, or it went to friends and then they started to sleep together.

"We can try." He didn't want to, because it wasn't good for him. It wasn't going to be good for him. He wanted to, too, though, and that was the hard part of all this. He wanted to believe that it was possible, and some part of him wanted to say sure. They'd dance that dance again, but most of him knew that there would come a time when Sara would show up, or somebody else that wasn't him, somebody a little less left of center. Somebody that would ease the transition between Gil and the rest of the world instead of making things harder.

Greg wasn't sure he could ease a damn thing for Gil, but Will... Will who looked so, so much like Gil. The eyes were a little wider, the face thinner, funny scars pocked all over him that weren't so funny where they came from. But Gil was guileless, and looked so glad Greg had said that. "Thank you. I know this is awkward."

Understatement. Vast understatement. "I think we'll live. Well. Maybe not the way I always thought we would, but...." He licked his lips. "I'm glad we're at least not...."

"Angry?" Yeah, Gil had missed angry, and Greg wasn't even sure what had happened between Gil and Sara.

"I kind of got past angry a while back. Well. It wasn't just angry." He lifted his glass. "It was more like furious. Rejected, completely fucked up...." He could admit that. It probably made him kind of an asshole for rubbing it in, but Gil deserved it.

"I actually thought it might be better for you to be... free. Out doing your own stuff. You seemed unhappy, and I didn't think at the time it was because of what I was doing." And since, well. He'd probably played everything out in slow mo.

"What in the hell other reason would there be, Gil?" He'd wanted to hit him at the time. Wanted to throw shit at him, wanted to make an ass of himself. Wanted to yell that he had been fucking Greg up the ass the night before he'd decided to propose, and what the shit was he thinking, that it was a good idea to do things that way?

"I don't know. I wasn't really... thinking at the time. I couldn't have picked a worse time to do what I did, and Sara..." Gil shrugged his shoulders. Good, he looked like he was still stinging over Sara.

It was only fair. Greg was, too, if he was honest about it. "Sara got what she thought she wanted. It just took her a while to figure out that she didn't actually want it as much as she thought she did." Not even close, because Greg had wanted it so bad he could taste it. He'd wanted it bad enough to share to get it, and he totally sucked at sharing. Only child, hello. Like that was news. He could face his own fallacies, pretty well if he did say so himself.

"Yeah," he finally said, thumb rubbing against his index finger. "If we keep talking about this, I'm gonna turn into a pissy bitch."

"Right." Gil exhaled, and sat up straighter in the chair. "So let's find another topic. How do you like your new lab mates?"

This wasn't going to be easy. Not even close to easy, but Greg could do it. He could try, anyway, because yeah, he loved Gil. He still did in some ways, but he was going to have to get over that, for so many reasons. Before that, he'd liked him, and he hoped they could go back to that. He'd have to try.

One way or the other, he knew now what he had to protect, and Gil wasn't on that list anymore.

~*~*~*~

Will was due any minute for their trip to the spy museum, and Greg hadn't decided how to ask him about going to see Gil. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, or even if he had the right to ask. Will was Will, and he did things the way he thought was right and best without really registering the why of what he was doing. Most of the time, it didn't make Greg uncomfortable. For now, it made him a little edgy.

What could he have gone to see?

Will had done graduate work at GWU, so he knew the campus and how to get there without any hassle, but then he'd shown up back at Greg's with doughnuts and Mal. There had been nothing at all off about Will, so whatever it was hadn't even registered in Will's psyche as anything deep and meaningful.

Stalking down people he didn't know still felt kind of deep and meaningful for Greg, but for all he knew it was Will's way of checking up on friends. Gil hadn't mentioned it again, but he'd said enough that hinted to Greg that it had disturbed him.

The simple solution was to ask. It had taken him years to get the idea that asking never hurt anything. It hadn't taken him more than a few seconds longer to figure out that asking might not hurt, but some questions were easier to ask than others.

When Will knocked on the door, Greg was out of the shower and pulling on clothes. He snagged a pair of jeans and managed to get them on by the time he got to the door to get it open. "Hey. Sorry, I was running a little behind."

"I'm running early. I managed to get Mal all wound up at the park this morning, so he's zonked out on the sofa with toys." Where he probably would lie for the foreseeable future. Will looked just easy happy. Eyes bright, expression relaxed. All he needed was a baseball cap, and it was Gil when Greg first came to the lab.

What kind of sick asshole was he, that he was basically dating somebody who looked like his ex-boyfriend and he'd only just realized it?

Reaching up, he rubbed his eyes for a minute, hoping to get the image out of them. When he looked again, it was gone, marred by the scar across Will's face so that he didn't see it anymore. "Yeah, that's good. Just let me grab a t-shirt and pull on some socks and shoes."

The wicked smirk on Will's face was all Will, hands down. "Sure." He stepped in, closed the door, and moved closer to Greg, reaching out so that he palmed both hips. "Hi."

He felt his mouth go dry. "Hi," he offered, and then leaned forward and kissed him.

That felt really, really good. There was a restrained passion there, a deep wanting, a delight in taking what he got, just the slow pressure of mouth against mouth before Will pulled back. It was awesome to be wanted as a whole package, and the fact that the kisses were nothing like Gil's, like he might break until they got going, helped.

"Shoes, shirt, and then let's go make a tourist out of you."

He grinned, felt it brighten him up, and stepped back. He didn't really want to, but they had plans. "Yeah. Yeah, let's... Yeah. Just a few minutes. There's coffee in the kitchen, and there are a couple of doughnuts left if you haven't gotten around to breakfast yet."

"Breakfast of champions and cops." Will let him step back. "I'll just loiter in here." And Greg could head down the hallway and get dressed. He wasn't going to look too out of place beside Will, at least. Jeans and t-shirt all the way. He was pretty sure Will's was from some interdepartmental competition thing.

It took him a good three or four minutes to dig out the t-shirt he was looking for and get himself together. His hair was easy enough to fix -- a minute with plenty of manipulator and he was ready to go, striding back into his kitchen. He tried not to think too hard about what Will might have said to Gil, or exactly what all of that was about, though the sooner he broke through it, the more he was going to be able to enjoy the spy museum, and at this point Will might actually start the conversation for him. He was eyeing Greg when Greg came back, chewing through a green banana.

"Those things are disgusting before they ripen. I'm never going to understand the love you have for them like that." It didn't keep him from making sure there were some in his kitchen, next to the ones he let ripen for himself.

"I like the green taste." Yeah, like chewing grass. Will was neat with it, though, and polished it off pretty quickly. "It sort of sticks to the roof of your mouth. Like the, uh... Damn, that failed. You were going to ask me about talking with Grissom?"

Dating a psychic definitely had its pitfalls. Hiding anything was never on the agenda. "You went to see him at the university. He was kind of... uncomfortable about it. I wondered why, mostly."

"Curiosity. I really don't... probe, I just catch surface thoughts, and it was just there, and you were unhappy thinking about him, so I thought I'd look him up and get a feel for it. It was a little surreal when I got there." Will tipped the banana peel upside down, and popped open Greg's trash can.

"Yeah?" He wanted to know and he didn't want to know. Again with the asking part being harder than it should be. "It was... unexpected. I more or less got kicked to the curb, so I wasn't expecting him to show up. Especially not with the whole friends spiel."

"If it works, it might give you a measure of solace. Molly didn't try." Will didn't blame her, and Greg didn't blame either of them, because from what he knew, that relationship had just gone to hell on a bullet train. "I started with the basic background check on him, and then I figured what the hell, show up when his class lets out."

"He's not a bad guy. He just sucks with people." In the extreme sometimes. He sucked more than Greg could deal with anymore, he just didn't know how to say that he couldn't actually do the friends thing. "I figure you know that by now."

"That's the funny thing of it -- he was shut down tight. Nothing. It was like staring at drywall. Drywall that looks quite a bit like me. There was nothing menacing about him, it was just... strange."

Strange was a good word for it. Greg hadn't ever heard Will say he couldn't read somebody. Admittedly, it had only been six months, but he'd have thought that he might have mentioned it if it had happened before. "Huh."

"Yeah. The only other person who could block me was Hannibal. So Grissom is some level of psychic, has to be." No one else would have that control to shut Will out, even though Will's control over what he did was still pretty unfocused and wild. He read everybody -- except the few people who had talents that shut him out.

That son of a bitch.

Greg breathed in, licked his lips. "Why don't we head on out. I don't want to think about this anymore." About Gil, because it just depressed him and kind of fucked him up, and he didn't want things to be like that when he was with Will.

"Yeah. It's..." Will shrugged his shoulders. "One of those things that's hard to understand. But we have a weekend, and beautiful weather today."

"Then let's go out. Make me think about something else," he said, and reached over to snag a doughnut and his coffee cup. "Remind me I'm happy here."

"My pleasure." Will kissed his cheek, snuck an arm around Greg's waist, but didn't jostle him. His breath smelled like bananas.

Greg decided that it was going to be a good day no matter what happened. Will would make sure of it, and he was pretty sure he could do that, too.

~*~*~*~

Mondays always sucked. It was the nature of Mondays to suck, and for Greg not to want to get up and make his way through traffic into the lab. The weekend had gotten a hell of a lot better starting Saturday morning. The spy museum had been made of awesome win, and he'd been starving by the time they'd made their way past the Wall. From there, Will had wandered them onto a train and to a place called Amsterdam Falafel shop because he wanted to go to the zoo afterwards. They'd even bought season passes to the place because Will liked the animals. He said the way the animals thought was relaxing. He'd liked the otters the most, because they were sensationally cunning. One of them felt like he was plotting a breakout, according to Will, but the rest of the family wasn't interested.

Will had done pretty damn well with the crowds, too, which kind of surprised Greg, but Will had pointed out that he had something to concentrate on with Greg there. If he'd been out on his own, it would've been unbearable, which explained why Will was pretty much a homebody while at the same time wanting to be out and exploring D.C. comfortably. 

So by comparison to Saturday, and then Sunday, which was running laundry, navel gazing and then trying to watch sports with Will and Mal over at Will's, Monday was damn bound to suck.

He'd been at it for two hours, and he'd decided to go pee in another thirty minutes. That was when they'd brought in the head of the swan.

Sometimes the only legitimate answer was what the holy fuck. 

"Bitten off," the guy said, shaking his head as Greg pulled it out of the cooler of dry ice. "Locals weren't sure what to think about it, and one of the guys in North Carolina had a brother who was in the local FBI office so...."

So Greg got the bizarre bitten off head of a swan. "Did anybody cast it for teeth impressions?"

"Not yet. They swore you had some specialized technique..." 

"Yeah, let's see if we can find you the guys who're gonna cast you a swan head," Chuck declared, chair squeaking when he got up. His lab was across from Greg's but he liked to come hassle him now and then. He'd taken Greg to the Turkish place he'd eaten at with Gil Friday night so it didn't bother him too much. "Wow."

"That's his job," Greg told the guy. "I'm DNA." Mostly, which meant he'd be taking a few swabs before Chuck took the head to make the casting. Might as well have something besides teeth impressions when the time came.

"That's going to hit as the weirdest animal mutilation I've seen," Chuck decided. "Greg, I'm going to go mix the casting medium." That declaration seemed to be enough to get the guy who'd brought it to them in gear, because he backed out of the room steadily. Funny, how a guy could hack that kind of thing in the field and have problems with lab geeks playing with the results.

"Yeah, go on. I'll deal with..." The head was huge. He couldn't imagine how the guy had gotten his mouth around it, especially without sustaining serious damage. He'd never had a lot of experience with birds, but he couldn't imagine that the thing wouldn't try and peck the shit out of him or snap off his tongue. They had teeth, after all, and that just. That killed Greg, trying to work that out, and he shouldn't laugh because it meant there was a crazy out there who'd probably hit Behavioral Sciences before he died, but it was still priceless.

"Yeah. Wow."

"You sound way too excited about this, Chuck," Greg pointed out, reaching for his scissors and his swabs. "Seriously. Way too excited."

"A man's got to take his kicks where they come from. I'm going to have to use a dental molding medium," he mused. "And I'm going to get some blood."

"So long as you get the shape, who cares about the blood?" So long as it was still mostly frozen, there shouldn't be that much of it, Greg figured. Chuck liked things to be perfect, though.

"Shape trumps blood." Chuck was going to stand there and make awesome faces at it while he waited for Greg to swab.

It didn't take long, the swabs lining up steadily in their own test tubes. "It's all yours. Who the hell bites the head off of a swan, anyway?"

"A freak show. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that he's going to be crossing your DNA path in the next year or two." That made Greg want to shiver but Chuck was probably right. The guys who started out with shit like this generally made their way to more serious crimes. It wasn't surprising to Greg.

Anybody who was cruel to animals had to be evil at the core in his opinion. "Yeah. That's kind of inevitable, I guess."

"You're going to be sitting there wondering what bit of spit matches the dude with the swan biting issues, aren't you?" Chuck grinned, crouching down to eye his work before he started.

"Until it shows up again, yeah. Why, you wouldn't be?" Except he completely was, and it made him frown. "Seriously, you've gotta ask yourself what kind of sick asshole would do a thing like this." It also made him grateful that he was wearing gloves, that there was something between him and the head. He didn't want to think about it. Not about any of it. He sure as hell didn't want to get any images of it as it happened.

Especially not if he was looking at it through the swan's eyes.

"Oh, I can make bets on exactly the kind of sick fuck who'd do things like this," Chuck drawled, watching and waiting for Greg to finish. "Not anyone I'd like to meet in a back alley."

Carefully, Greg deposited the head back into the bag and handed it over. "Go, have fun with it. I know you're just waiting to take pictures and put it in your Collection of Weird Shit photo album."

"It's an awe inspiring collection," Chuck declared. "I'll leave you to it." He grabbed the cooler and the baggy and headed back across the hall, whistling along the way.

He was a sick bastard, but Greg kind of liked him. That probably said bad things about him, but it was also pretty standard. He'd liked Gil, after all, and he liked Will, too. They both fell into that category.

A guy had to be a bit of a sick bastard to get super satisfied by that. Greg liked the rush of getting a hit, though, and they might be able to throw something else on a case somewhere. Or they'd have information ready for someone else's case whenever the guy escalated.

Death, taxes. Some things were inevitable, and he kept working on the last sample he'd pulled out, tucking the swan swabs carefully away until he could get back to them. They weren't high priority, but they niggled at the back of his mind while he worked until he couldn't ignore them anymore.

He finally pulled the documentation he'd need for it and started to process them, just for filing. He'd run them through the system, but he had a lot running through the system already, and he probably wasn't going to have results on anything until the next day. Still, once he got it done he could think about it as out of sight and ought of mind.

By then he was a little late for lunch, so he pulled his cell out of his pocket and called Will. He thought it might go to voicemail, but at the last minute, he answered.

_"Hello?"_

As if his name hadn't been emblazoned across the screen. It was kind of silly, the habits of human beings. "Hey. I just noticed the time."

_"That's okay. Still have time to grab something from the cafeteria?"_

"Yeah. I mean, it's not like there's somebody waiting to snatch a knot in me if I get out of here late and come back late, and I don't have a class waiting on me. Meet you down there in five?"

_"Will do."_ Will was short on the phone, like he didn't know what to do with it. He probably didn't, and that was a funny thought as he closed up his office and left it. He waved at Chuck, who was still playing with the swan's head, and headed for the stairs.

It didn't take long to get to the cafeteria. Will hadn't quite made it, so he poked his head in to see what was on for the day.

Chicken stuff, something pasta-y, salad, lasagna, more chicken stuff. Passably edible, most of it freakishly healthy without advertising it as such. He saw Will loping up the hallway, hands stuck in his pockets. "I'm getting rumblings about a case. I'm hoping it holds off until I can watch the massacre tomorrow."

"Oh, hey, yeah." He slipped into step with him, walking through the lunchroom. It echoed with the voices of other people, but it didn't keep him from hearing Will. "I don't want to miss that, either. How's the colonel holding up in class?"

"Great from what I can tell. He had them for two hours, and I get them afterwards. I expect at least one student who wants to get in my pants, and one student who wants me to mentor them. I expect that all of them want to get into their tactical teacher's pants." 

"Well duh." It was out of his mouth before he'd really thought about it. "I mean, seriously, you've looked at him. Who wouldn't want to get into those pants?" Then he bumped against Will, pulling out his wallet as they stopped to pay. "Don't worry, though. I'm pretty sure I'd be the one in your class."

"I scare the crap out of them as soon as I can," Will waggled his eyebrows at Greg as he got handed over an oddly crumpled handful of bills. "This is a good crop. Maybe once you're comfortable here, you can take on a class. You might get tapped for fill in sometime."

"Because I'm so experienced," Greg laughed, and fumbled for silverware and a tray. "Maybe one of these days I'll sit in on one of your classes. Then you'll know for sure which one of your students is which."

"Ah, but I've gotten used to the flavor of your thoughts," Will pointed out. "So I could find you in a crowded room if I were blindfolded."

There was something deliciously pervy about that. In a lot of ways, that was enough to make him feel pleased with himself, and pleased with Will, too. "And it would be interesting in a classroom. Um... I'll have the lasagna, and a couple of the rolls." There was a salad bar where he'd pick up something green to go with it.

"Same." The guy behind the counter seemed to know Will. Everyone they ran into who was staff seemed to know Will comfortably, which was at odds with Will's own self-perception that he was out there and unto himself. That was always funny to Greg, because Will was the kind of guy it was easy to like.

"Anyway...." He took his plate, put it on the tray and moved to get something to drink. Sweet tea was kind of awesome, and Greg wasn't sure he was ever going to want to move anywhere they didn't have it again. "What time's the field excursion? I'm assuming there are awesome places to watch all of this."

"Ten thirty, over by the range. Look for the crowd." The crowd? Oh, that promised to be good, then. Will was all wild smirks as he took his own plate and moved with Greg to get more coffee for himself.

"I'll bet they're all pretty hopeful." Hell, he would be, too, if he hadn't gotten glimpses of Sheppard dropping down out of the ceiling to kill some guys with extreme prejudice. It was a little disturbing, but also in keeping with the protective flashes he'd gotten off of the guy. "I mean, I would be if...."

"Hopeful that we're going to get a show, or hopeful that he'll throw someone a little attention? He's amazingly head over heels for his boyfriend. Partner. Whatever they're going by." Will sounded like he respected that.

"I was thinking more like hopeful that I might get a shot in instead of being completely slaughtered, but yeah, I guess if I wasn't pretty devoted to somebody, I'd be hopeful in the other direction, too." He avoided people coming in as they headed for the salad bar.

"You might be able to audit his class some time. Learn some new things." He wasn't imagining the faint rise in color he'd gotten out of Will when he said that, or the darted delighted look he gave Greg quickly.

"Or yours." That seemed to keep them both happy and exchanging looks over the top of the plastic until they sat down. Greg was hungry, so he took a minute to get a bite before offering any kind of conversation.

Will was looking around the room while he ate, a little distracted. "It's interesting how the mood of the place changes when each class hits about week seven compared to right now."

He couldn't help snorting at that. "That's when my will to live starts to come back around. Smelling salts would be a little more useful, but...."

"Maybe. They all go right downhill for a week. It's funny." There was another darting glance over his shoulder, and then Will leaned in a little, clearly focusing just on Greg while he started to eat. "Hi. The happy _we made it to Quantico_ vibe is distracting."

Greg poked his fork into his salad repeatedly until he had the bite he wanted. "I dunno, I kind of had a happy I made it to Quantico thing going on. For about forty-five minutes. Then Crawford showed up."

Will gave a startled laugh. "Yeah, he doesn't waste time. I was happy for... a good couple of months before he got me in on a case."

It probably hadn't been the Hobbs case. Greg didn't ask because he never wanted Will to feel like he had to talk about anything. Old cases, new cases, things that made him uncomfortable. "I saw him the other day. He looked like he was coming down with something."

"I'll catch hold of him sometime in the next day or so. He's..." Will shrugged his shoulders. "There's a saying that you fall in love with the Bureau, but it never loves you back. It's true."

It made a certain amount of sense to Greg. "I already fell in love with a job and let it break my heart, so... uh.... Yeah. Not so much in love with the Bureau." Just Will, so that didn't count.

"Oh, I... I loved the Bureau for a while. I gave everything for it." Will's mouth quirked, and he shook his head and ate a little more lasagna. "Took a while to realize it didn't love me back. Jack had it as his thing on the side for so long, until Phyllis died."

"I'm guessing after that it turned into his thing period. Kind of explains why he looks so tired, I guess." He took another bite of salad and then shrugged. "I got an interesting thing this morning. Well. Maybe not so much interesting as weird, and probably not so much weird as kind of disgusting to be talking about over lunch."

"Give me a try." Yeah. Since he was thinking of the swan head and Will was concentrating on him, Will probably already knew.

He raised a shoulder. "Guy delivered a swan head from North Carolina somebody bit off. I set swabs running. Chuck made an impression so we could compare it later if it comes up."

Will grimaced and then reached for his coffee. "The bitten off part just sounds... bitten off. Chewed through bitten off, or in the mouth bitten off?"

"In the mouth bitten off. I mean, how do you get something like that in your mouth entirely anyway? It was kind of big, and... what? Did he strangle it first so that it wouldn't peck the crap out of him, or bite his tongue or....?" It just wasn't following. There wasn't any logic to it.

"Sedation, maybe? Or it was dead before he did it. How bizarre." Will pulled another thoughtful face, then leaned an elbow on the table and kept eating.

"I'd think the blood would be part of it. Well, not part of it, more like all of it. You know? So if it's already dead, is he really going to get what he wants out of it?" It probably wasn't a logical thought. He was reaching, but what the hell. Reaching was kind of fun, it was interesting.

"It's hard to say." Will loved to throw cases back and forth, but this one seemed to be getting shut-down reaction from him that the spree-killer Greg had processed DNA on hadn't.

Interesting. Interesting, and something Greg was going to back off of, he figured. He didn't have to be a mind-reader to catch the tail ends of those clues. "So, yeah. It's Monday. I should probably go to my place tonight." Except he didn't like going to his place all that much. He preferred going to Will's, hanging out, making food or ordering delivery, petting Mal, falling asleep in front of the TV. He hated the thirty minute drive back to his place -- he always ended up more awake than not by the time he got home -- but it was a small price to pay. Especially if Will didn't mind it. "Wanna come over? We can dig through my DVD collection."

"That sounds good." There was a slight up-tip in Will's face when he said that, like he was shaking off whatever the shutdown -- decapitated swan's head -- was. "And yeah. There's something about it... I don't know. I bet I'll be seeing him sometime soon and I don't want to yet."

Sometimes, Greg wondered if there wasn't a touch of precog in Will, something a little more than he thought he had. He could see where Will wouldn't want to think about it; hell, he probably wouldn't either if he had as many unresolved issues as Will did. He didn't say anything about that, though, just nodded. "But we're not stepping into that one. Not either one of us." It wasn't a question.

"No." Unless someone asked Will, Greg was willing to bet. Will lifted his eyebrows, though. "So, what horrible movies are on tap for tonight?"

Easy as that. He suspected it wasn't actually that easy but he'd take what he could get. "You wouldn't believe the crap I've found. Moving is like that, you get secret caches of books and bad movies, and my folks did some cleaning last year and sent me this box of really terrible stuff on tape that I loved when I was a kid. There was this one with giant man-eating bugs planning to create an overload at a nuclear power plant, and a copy of _The Ugly Dachshund_ that I loved because we had this really stinky wiener dog terrier mix when I was a kid. I could dig those out to look through. I'm pretty sure my VCR is still working."

"I lost out on that format war," Will mused. He did seem to be settling back down, but for all Greg knew Will was in his head watching him watch Will watch him. "I had BetaMax, and refused for a while there to get a VCR. Yeah, let's dig those out."

BetaMax was something Greg kind of remembered. He was pretty sure his folks had one of those, too. His dad was kind of a technophile. Weirdly, he'd avoided going to CD for anything because he'd bitched about the joys of vinyl. Greg still had a turntable and a player for 8-tracks. "I'm pretty sure they tossed out boxes with BetaMax tapes. Then again, knowing my dad, he built shelves in the guest room and stuck everything in there. You know. Just in case." He snagged a roll and took another bite of lasagna.

"A shrine to BetaMax." Will made the hand-gestures, like he could see the wall. "No, I never went that far. Every once in a while, I just shovel the place out. If I haven't seen it in a while, I probably won't miss whatever it was. Including tax forms."

Sometimes Greg thought Will needed somebody in his life just to keep his shit straight and to keep him out of trouble. Other times, he knew it. "I have no idea what to say about that, even. Seriously? I mean, Dad's pretty much just a packrat. He's got this inner voice that says he's gonna need that again, even if it's just some old rusty screw. But... seriously?"

"You've seen my place," Will pointed out, finishing off his coffee. Yeah, but it wasn't empty. There were a lot of sentimental things that Will kept. On the other hand, there weren't random boxes at the back of closets, either. Everything was stuck on a shelf or not there at all.

"It's a good rule to live by except for the part where you're getting rid of your tax stuff." Which made Greg wonder what the hell else Will got rid of and never thought again that he'd probably need at some eventual point in time.

"I think I've still got ten years back," Will shrugged. "Roughly." And for the rest of it, he didn't know what was missing because he didn't miss it, which worked, Greg supposed.

He glanced down at his tray and contemplated it seriously for a moment. "You want dessert? I'll go get it."

Will glanced at his watch first, and then nodded. "Sure."

Sure, so Greg kicked back his chair and laid down his fork, wading back through the line and eyeballing the stuff lined up neatly side by side. There was pumpkin pie and pecan and some lemon thing that looked suspiciously sweet to him. He eyeballed the ice cream, too, and it took him a good few minutes to make any kind of decision.

By the time he got back with pumpkin pie and vanilla ice cream for both of them, Will was staring off into the middle distance a little creepily, and so Greg was careful to be just a little louder than usual when he settled into the chair across from him. "Here."

It startled Will a little, but his focus took a little time to come back. "Oh, thanks. Yeah, this is always good."

"So." Greg had milk, too, but that was mostly for him. Something about pie always said milk to him, like a kid who had never really grown up. "What were you thinking about just now?"

"Oh, I was..." Will picked a fork up, and waved it. "Most people think about sex a lot."

That got his eyebrows raised, even though he'd kind of known that. "So... somebody was thinking about interesting sex, then."

"Locker-room orgy, actually." Hell. And Will just went on eating pie. "Loudly." Maybe not loudly so much as Will had no filters.

They'd tried working on that, but sometimes Greg thought Will was purposely not getting it. Other times, he just put it off as a cultural oddity, a generation gap problem that he was never going to be able to solve. Sometimes, it was an enjoyable thing. Today it was, obviously, because he looked a little flushed at the edges, and the sight of it made Greg smile.

The problem was that it wasn't always that great, and he didn't know if he could fix it. Either of them. "Anybody we know involved?"

"No and I hope none of them are in my next class." Will cut his eyes to Greg, trying to focus hard on him, and Greg could almost tell when Will shifted from the way his eyes focused sharply again. "People never fantasize the anatomically possible."

"Knees bending in the wrong way?" Or worse. He'd read some really bad online porn, and okay. Obviously some of the people writing it weren't old enough to understand single-hinged joints, but the bad part was that some of them were.

"That was the problem with the last time I tried to take classes on focusing. Only it was the professor, and he was thinking it about this girl who had to have been underage. Sort of... No, the locker room one just has some stuff even I've never thought of before."

And that was all, because he had a spoon and he was digging into the pie with his fork. Greg let it go for a second, and then asked, "So what's the trouble when it's us?"

"I... fear what I could do if I really put effort in. I've only been trained to do one thing other than moving from head to head, and it scares me." Fear and scared, Will. Will who sometimes seemed like mister badass.

"Is there anything I can do to make it easier?" He wasn't going to lose hope, or stop trying to help.

"I just need to..." Will ate a little more pumpkin pie and ice cream. "Get hold of myself and stop being scared. I think I made it harder on myself with what I had to do to get through... Harrisburg."

Harrisburg would always be a burning horror in the back of his mind, Greg figured. He'd only been there at the end, and God knew it was burned into his. "Yeah. I don't mean to push, just... I was wondering."

"If you're up to it, we could poke at it this weekend. I'd just like to be sure there's time built around it." In case it went badly and they spent the rest of the weekend playing with Mal and not doing shit else. Yeah.

"Four whole days away." Greg took the last bite of his pie. "And we have to go back to work. I'd prefer a food coma after this."

"And I have Forensics for Dummies. Today we'll be doing syllabi and how to put on gloves. With as many of them coming from police departments as they do, you'd be shocked how many get gloves wrong." Will was scraping crust and melted ice cream together to finish off. "Thanks."

"Anytime." He meant that. Anytime, and anything Will needed. They'd been sort of dating for months, and it had been... a lot of things. Good things, all of them, good for him, and he hoped good for Will. He wanted it to keep going. "Guess I need to head back to the lab."

Will stood up, and started to gather the plates up to take them to the front. "Yeah. Back to the classroom. I'll see you tonight."

Tonight, for bad movies and whatever he cooked. Scrambled eggs or something, maybe, toast. That kind of thing. "Yeah. See you later."

Will wouldn't care. Greg could probably just turn him loose in the kitchen. 

He waved, headed for the door, and Will waved back, lingering a little and mostly watching him.

~*~*~*~

By Saturday morning, Will was nervous.

It wasn't a pacing up and down nervous, and it hadn't even disturbed his sleep, not more than anything else did. Mal was flopped out on his stomach, content after his morning walk, and Will was contemplating getting somewhat more dressed since Greg was coming over. Not just Greg, amusingly enough. Greg was just the first one who was due, and he was coming with breakfast. Will had gained ten pounds since they started dating, so maybe he'd have to cut back on the food sometime soon. Greg couldn't seem to put on so much as five pounds, considering how much he ate.

Still. Breakfast was breakfast, and when he showed up, he had burritos with eggs, bacon, cheese, and tomatoes. "Morning. Hey, Mal, you have a good walk?"

"Mal had a great walk. Also, I just realized I've sort of bulked back up. This is your doing." It was mostly, to an ounce, good bulking, because he'd kept up with his running and his long walks with Mal and just general activity. But.

"Yeah, well. I kinda like you like that." Greg grinned at him, stepped closer and tipped his head a little. It was asking for a kiss without actually asking, and it made Will smile.

He liked Greg's body language. It was beautiful and easily expressive and he could respond to it better than words, closing the space between them to take that kiss. They hadn't gone further. They'd slept, but it was sleeping, and his body still felt like a stranger's some days. Still, he wanted more. He wanted to have and take more. He wanted to get down on his knees and suck Greg off. Will wondered if that could be felt in the way he kissed him, the way Greg opened up to him intensifying the desire. For a second, he thought he might do it, too, but then Greg pulled back just a little, still smiling. "We could call Sheppard. Cancel," he murmured. "If you wanted."

"It's not for hours." They were going to meet at a paintball range, and Sheppard was bringing his significant other, who was apparently hysterical to watch on a range like the one they were headed to.

"I'm pretty sure I'd want that long." Yeah. Yeah, he would, Will could tell, would want to spend as much time as he could spread out under Will, over him, and huh. That was a remarkably interesting little thought, half-hidden and a bit bashful. He never would have thought he'd find anything timid about Greg.

"I'm pretty flexible." And that wasn't anatomically impossible. It felt like a very real thought, and the realism made it dirtier than all the glossed up fantasies.

"And I'm kind of easy." Kind of, and that was definitely a nice thought. "But... you shouldn't feel like it's something we have to do yet. I mean..."

"I want to work up to it. Maybe we could try tonight?" After paintball, after everything else. Paintball wasn't going to take too much time. Suit up, get their asses kicked, hang out

There was something kind of wonderful about the way Greg's mouth curled up, a little shy but with a sly edge to it. "We can try whatever you wanna try. I'm not just easy, I like new things."

"I could show you some new things," Will mused after a moment. "Nice new things."

It was no surprise when Greg leaned in again, kissed him in a way that said yes, yes, and definitely yes. He seemed reluctant when he pulled back, and Will cupped a hand at the back of his neck. "We, uh. We should eat breakfast. Run errands so that we can meet the colonel and his friend this afternoon."

"Right. I'll grab the plates." Will pulled back reluctantly, trying not to wade too much into Greg's mind before he gave up and did throw the plans to the wind. After all, it wasn't too late for them to call Sheppard and cancel if they were both spread out over his bed.

"Hey, you have milk?" Greg put the bag with breakfast on the table, and Mal got up creakily, making his way towards the table. "Morning, buddy. Has he had a t-r-e-a-t?"

"Uh-uh. Greenies are where they usually are." Sometimes, Will thought Mal could spell, because there was a flush of warmth from Mal and Greg, just contentment, while Will got plates and utensils.

"Here you go. C'mon, boy, c'mon, oh, hey, who's a good dog? You are, yeah, here we... nuh. No, beg. Be... oh, that's gross, Mal!" Gross, but Greg was still laughing, rubbing his hand on the old pair of jeans he was wearing. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

"Fresh dog breath is the best thing." Will came back, watching Greg, and sort of half-dreading that he'd bring up the half-promise Will had made to try harder at blocking and focusing. There were a lot of things he'd rather do.

"Yeah, compared to not-fresh dog breath, it's fantastic." Greg made a face and slipped past him towards the kitchen sink. "It could be worse. I had this cat when I was a kid who thought the best way to get me out of bed was to rasp its fish-breath tongue on my nose if I wasn't up soon enough. At least he didn't sit on my face."

"I've never really had a cat. I've had dogs that thought they belonged right in my face first thing." Not Mal, though; he was more of an end of the bed kind of dog. Will started to plate up breakfast, sneaking a look over at Greg.

He was wiping his hands on a paper towel, coming back towards the table. "Yeah, well, cats pretty much think you belong to them, anyway. Auntie Vilja always had dachshunds that kind of thought the same thing, so maybe it's a size-related issue, you know?"

"Sam was a funny dachshund thing." Will handed Greg a fork as he sat down. "Part dachshund, part French bulldog."

He took the fork and settled in the chair next to him. "Oh, the one with the contraption because his back was broken, right? I'm not even sure what to think about French Bulldog plus wiener dog."

"Wheels," Will grinned. He'd had to train Sam to use it, and Jack had never shut up about how strange it was, but he'd been worth the effort. "Yeah. He was a weird looking buddy, but he was happy." Speaking of happy, Mal had wiggled himself under the table to rest his chin on Will's thigh.

Greg picked up the burrito with both hands and grinned, his fork laid to the side. "You're kind of awesome funny about your dogs."

"I can hear what they think, so it makes it easier. Not that they..." Will started to chew a little, slowly, and reached down to pet Mal. "Happiness, pain or anger, just the basic levels. It makes it easier to care for them." Made it easier to make them happy all the time, and Mal was chomping happily at the Greenie, slobbering beneath the table. He liked that, liked knowing he could make something happy instead of just destroying things.

"It's not just that, though. You're a good man." Molly used to say that, before everything. It hurt him a little to think about it.

"I'm not. I've done things without a qualm that..." Should have bothered him as more than a thought experiment.

Greg's mouth quirked. "I know." Of course he knew. Will was sure that Jack hadn't held anything back when he'd let him touch all of the things in his office. "But you are. You really are, even though you doubt it. You shouldn't."

"I don't want to get complacent with myself." He shrugged, chewing through another bite of burrito. Mal could smell the burrito and half was interested, and Greg was just happy and thoughtful.

"Yeah, well. I don't think you really have to worry about that." He took another bite and chewed, and Will didn't jump when a sneakered foot bumped gently against his bare one. "So Sheppard's bringing stuff for us, too? He was awesome Tuesday."

"It was. When he rolled down the hill firing, got up and hid behind the building?" Will leaned an elbow on the table. "That was beautiful."

None of the students had been expecting that. Hell, none of them had hit him with a single shot. "I still wanna know how he managed to get out of that tree he started off in without anybody hitting him. We're gonna get our asses kicked today."

"And I'm going to look forward to it," Will grinned. "That's a learning ass kicking."

"It's been a while since anybody let me run around with a paintball gun." A gun of any kind, because Will could see the flitting thought of the last time running through Greg's mind. They'd been training for a hostage situation and he'd been held captive. "You'll forgive me if I suck, right?"

"Yes. I'll completely forgive you. I could train you, if you wanted." Except Will didn't want to, and he ate a little more. "But this is more of a fun thing than real training."

Fun was good. Teaching Greg anything that involved a gun wouldn't be. He knew that from experience, and he couldn't face doing something like that again. Not now. Not ever. "I'm good with fun. Maybe I'll at least be good enough to go up against his friend. What was the guy's name again?"

"Doctor Rodney McKay." Will was already smirking when he said it, cutting Greg a sly look. "Of the heart-shaped ass, according to John."

Watching his eyebrows shoot up was worth it. "Heart-shaped ass?"

"First thing that came to mind when he mentioned Rodney," Will drawled. "He's with DARPA now."

"He's also very handy if everything's falling apart." Greg grinned. "I didn't get any names. I mean, I was paying attention to things like _Atlantis_. Heart-shaped ass is a better descriptor. Sheppard's spent a lot of time looking at it."

"Oh yeah, he has. People usually have go-to daydreams, the ones they like to do over and over. Music, and winning the lottery. For Sheppard, it's his partner's ass."

"It's a nice ass." Hard to argue that, although he'd bet Greg had a more concrete picture than his own memory-fantasy image from Sheppard's head. "I'll try not to shoot him in it." He took a big bite of his breakfast burrito.

"You're a better man than I am. I'm aiming for the ass." Will leaned down a little, and scratched at Mal's head.

"There's a shortage of perfect asses in the world. 'Twould be a pity to damage his." He was dating a complete dork, but he'd kind of already known that. Greg seemed pleased with himself, grinning across the table now.

He could ride the dorkiness, coast on it. "That's it, I'm making coffee to go with this, too. I like your skinny ass, but that's just personal preference." That and the easiness of Greg's thoughts, the way that he didn't make Will uncomfortable when he was near, and he didn't push things when Will was having a hard time with them.

"Coffee would be fantastic." Greg licked his lips. "I'm glad you like my skinny ass. It's not, you know. Perfect or heart-shaped, so."

"You say to the man who's bow-legged," Will pointed out, putting water in the little carafe for the good coffee maker. "Good stuff, or mediocre stuff?"

"Mediocre stuff. It's faster. Also... bow-legged, but, uh. I've figured that was just a good reason to be kind of hopeful."

"Nothing can stand up to imagination." He started to make it, and listened to Mal scuff around on the floor, moving on to the other knee he could lean up against.

Greg got up, wandered from the table and into the kitchen where he was. "Yeah, well. I'm pretty sure my imagination will stand about right. When you're ready to let me know, anyway."

"I might startle you some time. Come over and declare that I feel up to sex, cancel all your plans." He got two mugs down, rummaged the lazy susan for cream and sugar.

Greg leaned a hip against the counter next to him. "Don't be surprised when I cancel everything and turn on Barry White. With a little warning, I might even cook dinner."

"... I'm not sure I could actually have sex to Barry White. 'Can't Get Enough of Your Love' is pretty obvious at that point." They were circling around it pretty tightly, and Will wasn't pulling back, didn't feel like he wanted to.

"Barry White is classic!" It wasn't a real protest. It was more by way of an observation, and Greg reached for a mug, pre-dosing it with sugar and creamer. "Okay, so... if not Barry White, what would you consider sex music?"

"I'm not sure I've ever had sex to music." He'd done it almost every other way, but never to music, and he could flip through the catalogue in his head to be sure.

"I'll start searching iTunes for appropriate sex music." A flash of Led Zeppelin crossed his mind, beat driving down in a way that made Will want to laugh. "As soon as I get home, anyway. So, you know which way we have to go to meet Sheppard and McKay?"

"Oh yeah. I can find it, and I swear we won't get lost." He tapped his fingers on the coffee pot, waiting for it to brew.

Greg snorted. "Better you than me. After that last fiasco...." The fact that he not only got lost but that he always seemed to get lost in the parts of town that nobody ever needed to get lost in would have been funny if it hadn't been for the gunshots every block and a half.

"You'll get a feel for it. I'm sure I'd be out of my league in Vegas," Will pointed out. The coffee was starting to drip, and Greg was in the kitchen with him, and Mal was possibly contemplating getting into a chair to polish off the last of Will's breakfast.

"I'm not sure you're out of your league anywhere." Greg tilted his head and looked at him. "Why don't we head out to that used bookstore you mentioned last week? In between now and then, anyway."

"It's huge." It was probably going to be an interesting experience for Greg, because the books were, well, used. From Will's experience, books were usually pleasure or comfort items.

"Huge is good," Greg murmured, and gave him one of those sly looks from beneath his lashes. "Sounds like a plan."

Will leaned in, kissed him again because he could, because they both wanted to. "Yeah. I like these non-plan plans."

"Mmmm." Murmured agreement was good. "Me, too. So... got travel mugs?"

"Yes, though as the passenger, you get the one that's a little dicier." He pulled away to take care of that, but it wasn't far. He liked this, and wanted to keep it that way forever, or at least as long as he could.

Will never understood why disaster seemed to deposit good things in his lap afterwards, but he was grateful this time. Greg was a good thing, and he hoped things would last. Hoped that it wouldn't explode the way that good things tended to for him.

~*~*~*~

Holy shit.

More like holy fuck, because okay. Watching Sheppard kick the asses of a bunch of students was damn funny. Getting his own ass kicked? Not so much fun in Greg's august opinion.

Well, okay, that was kind of a lie. It really was fun; he just couldn't remember the last time he'd been tagged quite so often or so hard.

He was glad he'd gone for full armor and that he'd talked Will into it. Will was grinning wildly somewhere under his helmet, and nodded sharply at Greg before he twisted to look over the top of the berm they were hiding behind. The sound of the paint pellets thocking as they hit the barrier made him laugh.

"We are so screwed," Greg panted, and then nodded in the direction he intended to go. "I'll take McKay if you wanna try Sheppard."

"Right. We might have to throw up the white flag soon." Will had wiped Greg's mask free of paint not too long ago, and Greg felt more tired than if he'd been running laps with Nick.

"So long as you can swear to me you got McKay in the ass at least once, I won't feel like it's a wasted day." God, he was going to need a nap when all of this was over.

"Twice." Will held up padded safety glove covered fingers, and then turned back. "I'm going over." Greg knew what he was going to do -- he'd seen that episode of _Blackadder_ , only this wasn't going to end in poppy fields. Particularly since Sheppard's pellets were green.

He didn't wait for Will to count off or anything. It had been pretty obvious from the start that Will would say what he was doing and then do it, and he was just edgy enough that he'd actually hit the guy a couple of times. Greg had been grateful that he was mostly left with McKay, so now he crouched and ran to the right towards the tree stand there in hopes of being missed and getting off a few more shots.

Will was a pretty good distraction, and there might have been some kind of battle cry that he gave when he ran like that, but Greg could see McKay watching when he got near enough to shoot.

Carefully, he squeezed off several shots, bright pink blossoming across McKay's torso and down over a hip. That probably hurt like hell, a fact of which he was far too aware. Still, it was pretty good revenge for the face full of yellow paint he'd gotten earlier. "Ha!"

He heard McKay swear and jerk up to fire back at him, but that was as good a time as any to roll down, trying to get into hiding again. Yeah, they were going to have to surrender soon, but damn. It had been fun, and Sheppard was having a good time as opposed to trying to slaughter them where they stood. He was more than capable of that; Greg had seen it, smoke and gunfire and dead guys in rustic uniforms. He got the idea of just doing something to enjoy it, though, and he didn't get those two things confused, so it was a good time.

When he glanced right, he saw Will with his arms up and his gun on the ground, taking off his helmet while John meandered up to him. Looked like Custer's last stand was done with, then, because Will's helmet was a painty wreck.

"I give up!" Greg yelled, coming out of the stand of trees, his own pistol held above his head to show that he wasn't planning to shoot anymore. McKay was scowling at him in a way that suggested he wouldn't mind squeezing off a couple more shots in his direction. Greg sort of didn't doubt that he wanted to, but he lowered his own gun, and then started to pull awkwardly at his helmet while trying not to drop it.

He moved closer to Will, starting to laugh. "This was awesome!" He yelled it, even though it wasn't so far, and fuck, he was tired. Tired and he needed a shower, and the vague discussion of later was still bouncing around in the back of his mind.

"Yeah." Sheppard was standing next to Will now, his own helmet tucked under his arm. "It kinda was."

"My ears are going to be ringing for days." Will was all wild, happy grins, though, as he extended a hand to shake John's. "That was great."

Rodney was trudging back up to the berm, juggling gun and helmet and probably trying not to look over at Greg spitefully. "Thank you for avoiding any particularly cheap shots."

It was hard not to say that his ass wasn't a cheap shot -- it was just kind of fantastic to watch. "Cheap shots are us?" Yeah. Not so much, but what the hell. "You guys wanna go get a beer? If anybody'll let us in the way we look right now."

"I know a place that's not too far walking," Will suggested, half-rubbing at the helmet. "If you want to."

"Walking?" McKay was scowling. "After all of this running and jumping and skipping and hopping? Also, after being shot in the ass? I don't..."

"C'mon, Rodneeeeey." Sheppard dragged it out, and Greg had to stop himself from laughing. "It won't kill you."

"It might!"

"Block and a half, tops," Will promised, glancing over at Greg. "With good beer and snacks. They'll let us in, too."

Greg licked his lips. "I'm dying for something to drink, and if food's involved, I'm kind of there. Besides, I don't know about you guys, but I put another pair of jeans and a t-shirt in the car." Who wanted to sit in their car with a paint-covered ass, anyway?

"McKay and I doubled up. Pads out the welts." McKay actually looked like he had a flak jacket on over his shit, and Will was still grinning.

"Yeah, I've got jeans and a t-shirt on under this. And welts."

"And bruises." It had been a while since Greg had gotten welts and bruises on purpose, and this was an interesting new way to get them. He thought he'd maybe double up himself if there was a next time. "Anyway, let's grab our stuff and we can probably change wherever Will's taking us, yeah?"

"Yeah. They have great burgers, too." Sheppard was nodding, and McKay looked happier at the mention of the word 'burgers'.

"Between the last time I was in D.C. working at the puzzle palace and now, my favorite place shut down. They had these fantastic cheese steaks..."

McKay kept on, blah, blah, blah, and Greg glanced at Will as they started back towards the car. He looked happy, and it made him wonder if what was going on in McKay's head was the same as what came out of his mouth. It moved fast enough, anyway, and Will glanced at him with a smirk as they got closer to the parking lot. Times like this, he wished he could read minds, too, because whatever Will was picking up was amusing him pretty hard-core. Will looked, too, like he was considering changing clothes _in_ the parking lot, which was maybe what Sheppard was planning, too, though he doubted McKay would.

What the hell. Greg had been naked in places that were a lot more public than this, so by the time they got back to the car and started to stack their gear together, he was ready to strip off and change where they were.

"I'll play spotter for you," Will offered, unzipping his coverall.

"What? I'm not afraid to show my ass. Well, so long as nobody's gonna arrest me for it." He couldn't help smirking a little, because yeah. It wasn't like he'd be shining his ass to half the world.

"You'd never hear the end of it if you did get arrested for it," Will grinned. Greg was pretty good, though. He had boxer shorts on, and while they were a little festive, they definitely covered the junk. 

Will leaned against the back bumper of his truck, and started to loosen his shoes so he could get the kneepads off.

"Are you kidding? It'll take about twelve hours and then Nicky will be calling, pointing and laughing all the way, because what kind of dork gets caught half-naked in public?" Him, apparently, because he was stripping down and shimmying in the hopes that it wouldn't take long.

He could see Will peeking at him and grinning a little before he went back to squirming out of his coveralls. "Oh, I probably could."

"Probably, but hopefully neither of us will be getting arrested." Sheppard was stripping off twenty or thirty feet away, McKay bitching the entire time. "I mean, we've got plans and stuff."

"Beer and food," Will agreed, lowering the tailgate on his truck and digging for the keys to let him into the toolbox. "This was great. I can't remember the last time I had that much fun being shot at."

"The fact that you can even say that with a straight face kind of cracks me up." Yeah, because Greg couldn't think of any time he'd had fun getting shot at -- not even like this. "Got out the garbage bags yet?"

"Getting them now. Just..." Greg heard the rustle of plastic. "There we go. Drop your clothes in. My washing machine can take it."

He started shuffling his clothes into the bag. Jeans, t-shirt, the old denim jacket he'd been wearing, everything but his socks and his boxers. They were lurid, bright Hawaiian colors because he seriously needed to do some laundry. It just seemed like he spent most of his time over at Will's and it was a pain in the ass to shuffle in the time to do things like wash clothes and run the dishwasher. "Yeah, I've got stuff that needs washing at home." He took care to wipe his hands off on the inside of his jeans before he closed the bag.

"You could just grab it and bring it over sometime." Will didn't care if he was using his water.

"Yeah, I know, but that would mean I'd have to think about it before I came over, you know?" He took his bag of clothes from Will, taking care to wipe his hands off on the rag 

"Yeah." Will watched him for another beat, and then went back to shimming out of his coveralls, moving pretty decently quick. "So, when we get home, I can put on the laundry and maybe we could, uh..."

"Get clean?" Greg offered, grinning up at him.

"Yeah." Will exhaled that more than he said it, and it did make Greg grin a little more.

"Are you guys comin' sometime today or what?"

He turned around and nearly fell over because he didn't have his left foot entirely in his jeans leg right. "Uh, sorry, I...."

"In a second!" Will moved to put away the clothes, jamming a foot into his sneakers while he did so before locking the toolbox again.

He managed to get his t-shirt over his head, and reached for his tennis shoes. "Yeah, so. Burgers, and tell me there are onion rings." What the hell. Will would kiss him anyway.

"They're interesting," Will mused. "Twice fried, I think. Or twice battered. You'll like it."

"And beer." McKay was demanding. "It had better be good beer, too, none if this namby-pamby American stuff." And Sheppard started poking at him, teasing, making Will laugh at them.

Greg figured he could learn to enjoy weekends spent doing stuff like that.

~*~*~*~

Getting clean had never been so dirty, and Will liked the water. He liked the water best because it was novel and hot, and Greg's hands were soapy and, face to face, Will could focus on Greg and what he was doing instead of slipping into his mind. As long as he focused on Greg, he wouldn't see himself or really actively remember himself in Pranos, raping himself.

It was easier, and Greg was leaning back against the shower stall, letting him do anything he wanted, and he was enjoying himself. That was the best part, that he was enjoying himself, head tilted back, little shudders rippling through him in time with the way Will touched him, and when he moaned, the sound bounced a little on the tiles.

He liked the sounds. He liked the sounds and he liked kissing down Greg's body, kissing his stomach, kneeling down and yeah, he should. He needed to, wanted to try.

"I can.. if you want me to, I can..." Greg sounded good, though, drugged with the pleasure of it, and that was what Will wanted to hear. What he wanted to feel, reverberating back in the echoes from his mind, all drunken pleasure and a satisfied tiredness that made up for the hard tiles against his knees.

"Just enjoy it." Will rubbed fingers against Greg's hip, tracing his skin while he pressed a kiss just below that before he leaned in and took Greg's wet dick into his mouth.

"Oh my god." That was good, echoed quietly in the way that that he thought it, the way that he moved shaking hands to pet over Will's hair. "Oh my god."

He would have grinned if he could, but it was better that teeth didn't get involved while he formed his mouth into a tight o and sucked, going through the motions and adjusting from the reactions Greg was giving him. It was obvious that he was trying not to buck his hips, shift in any way that made things hard for Will. He was shaking from head to toe, though, giving little murmurs of sound that made it better. Combined with the easy touch of his hands, the way he stroked Will's head, the back of his neck, the soft rub of his thumb just behind his ear, it was good.

It was nice, to be there and feel, but not to ride out on that alone. To be in himself and open, but _in himself_ , feeling Greg's cock against his tongue, the pressure, the fullness, Greg's hands on his, no, Greg's hips under his hands, the physical sensations that were sweet and grounding, the thumb behind his ear, that shake and the huffed breaths Greg gave.

"I'm gonna... I'm gonna, I, Will, I...." And he didn't draw back, didn't flinch, just sucked Greg's dick in deeper. When he came, it was clean, salty and not unpleasant to taste.

A relief, and Will pulled back, kissed the side of Greg's softening dick and leaned his cheek against Greg's hip. That felt good. He was hard as a rock, nothing else had to happen if he didn't want it to, and that just felt good. Felt easy and right, and it had been months. He'd wondered if he'd ever be able to do that again, any of it, and now he knew.

"Jesus." Greg was blissed out, a little limp around the knees. "Oh, god, Will. I... you wanna....?"

"Oh, yeah." Yeah, he wanted to. He was comfortable with Greg, knew intimately what he liked, knew he wasn't going to cross over any of Will's issues if Will could work them out in time to warn him, and that was what he needed. Will started to stand up, bracing a hand on the inside of the shower. "Let's get dry."

Greg laughed, and it was full of warmth, of what they were creating between them. It made Will want him, especially when he shook the water out of his hair wildly and then helped him up off of his knees. "I think that's a great idea."

Will reached past him, shut off the taps, and nudged open the door so he could back out of the stall and Greg could follow. "I think we finally got all the paint off of you."

"Even the bits hidden in places I couldn't have found easily on my own." Not that there had been that much. Between their gear and Greg's clothes, it was mostly exposed areas that had suffered. "Towel?"

He reached for and grabbed a wide, thick towel and handed it to Greg, still luxuriating in the sated sensation. "I think I found them for you."

There was something about watching him, the way he seemed to melt towards Will, leaning in, all damp skin and soft mouth so that it was impossible to resist kissing him. It left him burning for more, enough that he thought maybe he didn't give a damn how dry they were.

"C'mon. You wanna fuck me, yeah?"

"I want to try? I want to at least touch you, make you feel good..." It wasn't like he'd die if he didn't get to 'use' his erection, and he was happier with everything feeling good, hot or low heat.

That flirty look, all dark lashes and slow, easy smile, made him move closer. "Whatever you want's good with me." It was, it really was. He could feel that coming off of Greg in waves, which was just as good as feeling it himself.

He leaned in to kiss Greg again, hands holding onto the towel, half-drying Greg off for him. "Yeah. We'll just..." See. He was a little worried it might seem too much like what he'd seen.

"Yeah." Yeah, and they were walking-stumbling into the bedroom, hands pulling him along. Mal wuffled from his corner, and for a second, he knew Greg thought about having sex with a dog in the room, that he'd done it before, and then he tucked that thought away in some kind of file drawer in his head so that he wouldn't look at it.

He wished Greg didn't have to do thoughts in drawers, but he had filing cabinets worth of them, vast mazes of them, so he understood the use and kissed Greg again. "This is different." Different from what he was afraid of and different from what Greg was remembering.

They stumbled their way into the bed, and Greg laughed, stopping for a minute before they fell over. "C'mon. Let me.. I'll...."

His phone rang.

Not his, a crazy vibrating subsonic boom of a sound, and the way Greg cursed was short, sharp. "Ignore it. It'll..."

Will held still like a gopher, waiting, hearing that deep vibration and feeling Greg's anxiety. If they ignored it, Greg was going to keep wondering what it was.

It stopped, for about seven seconds, and then started to ring again.

"Jesus. I swear to God...." He looked at Will helplessly, because it sucked. It did, but it wasn't the end of the world if he answered it.

Probably.

Will moved to get it, reached for it, and flipped it on before he uttered, "Sanders."

There was a long stretch of silence on the other end that made him automatically suspicious. _"Is Greg available?"_

"Mostly. Can I ask what this is about?" It was the only places where he was flying blind, but he got through phone calls through bravado.

_"Graham, I need to talk to Greg. There's an incident."_ That was enough to make Will deeply curious. Greg probably was, too, because he had to hear at least a little of what was going on. The volume was loud enough.

Sometimes he was tempted to play the out of touch, insane psychic most people expected him to play. He could feel Greg's curiosity and anxiety, though, so he handled the phone over to Greg with his own curious look.

"Yeah." That was all he said, and Will wondered if it was because he was there or not. He didn't think so, not particularly, but there was a guardedness about Greg now that he didn't like.

He couldn't do anything about it, but Will moved to sit on the edge of the bed, just waiting, and half listening.

"What the... You're kidding, right? I mean, there's... that's disgusting. And also kind of stupid, because why would anybody....Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No, I'm... Yeah. No. I'll be there. Give me...." Greg glanced at Will. "Forty-five minutes. Yeah, well, we were out playing paintball, and I'm gonna need.... No, of course I have clothes in the car. It'll take time to get there, Grissom."

Will wasn't good at social situations, but who called up an ex and then half-demanded things of them? Will lifted his eyebrows at Greg, and decided to head in search of their clothes.

"Jesus Christ, Gil." Wow. From relaxed to seriously pissed in oh-point-thirty-four seconds. Pretty impressive, even for an ex. Will had never gotten that sharp with Molly, but then. Things had been different for them. "I'm coming. That's the best you get, because there are damn sure other techs. So take it or leave it, but I'll be there in forty-five." He hit the button, and that didn't sound satisfying in the least.

Wow. Will grabbed his underwear and pulled them on, taking a minute to sort of stuff and tuck himself. The erection was starting to die off, and it'd be officially buried soon. He was contrite with Molly, sad, mostly, when they did talk, and any _'Jesus Christ, Will,'_ that he got was in a completely different tone.

Greg rubbed his face and gave a heavy, angry sounding sigh. "I'm sorry. I really am, I mean, you'd think I was the only DNA guy on the east coast the way he's talking."

"What happened?" What happened came before 'and what does he think he's doing', and 'Welcome to my jurisdictional hell', but he'd break that last part slowly.

The huff of breath was probably a way to calm down. "There's a body. He's been called in for consultation. The insect life is pretty unusual, considering the body's in D.C. And by unusual, I mean they found a beetle crushed into the shoe of the vic that doesn't belong."

"Transported in a decomposing state is interesting," Will admitted. "Open air body dump or enclosed?"

"He didn't say. Apparently he was too caught up in the beetle. He said it was a Darkling?" He took his jeans when Will handed them to him and started squirming them on. He hadn't brought extra underwear. "Which should probably mean something to me except for the part where it doesn't."

"That means shit all to me since they're worldwide, and there're more species than people in some cities." Will started to pull on his own jeans, trying not to get caught up in what felt like a rage-storm from Greg, which was spilling over and making him feel edgier. "I... hate to break it to you, but you have to respect jurisdiction. You're federal now, Greg."

He made a face. "Yeah, but Gil's calling, so... I'm gonna assume that he's got the right to call me for it. If he doesn't, then I'll tell him to go fuck himself and you can come home with me. If you want."

"Okay. I'm going with you, though. The local police won't bullshit me." They knew him, they respected him, and he'd worked hard to get a trust level with the D.C. police, the Maryland police and the Virginia police that made up their little knot of a Capitol. "And he's not your boss anymore. You don't... shouldn't feel you have to take that shit."

"I'm not sleeping with him anymore, either. I've always had a hard time letting go of things," Greg admitted. "I'm not going back. I don't wanna go back, I mean, we were... and things were fucked up even before he took off after Sara. I just... still jump when he calls. I spent eight years doing it. Habits are hard to break."

"It's okay. It's not like Jack doesn't jerk me around when he gets going on a case." And Will went with it. He pulled on a clean t-shirt so he at least wouldn't smell like they'd been doing what they'd been doing and padded out of the bedroom to make sure Mal was content enough to leave him be.

"I can drive, if you want." And probably get them lost. It'd get another call from Grissom, and it just wasn't worth it.

"I'm good for it," Will called over his shoulder, trying to shake off his head enough that it'd pass for dry.

Greg tugged on his t-shirt, his own hair sticking up in every direction. "I'm sorry. I should've told him no."

"I'm calling this Adventure Saturday. Mal's gotta come with us, so once I clear you with the locals we'll go play fetch in the parking lot." It was better than lurking around a crime scene that wasn't his, getting whiffs of the scent.

He liked the curve of Greg's mouth, the way he leaned in and kissed him, slow and sweet, delicious. "Wish I could go with you. I'll probably get to, I figure. In all likelihood, Gil hasn't asked if it's okay for me to show up."

~*~*~*~

Turned out Gil had already talked to the D.C. cops about him. For some reason they weren't even pissy when he got there, especially since he had Will with him. They all knew him and seemed to like him. Two of them asked if he wanted to take a look at the body, but he was polite in declining and stepping away.

He picked a stick up from under a tree a bit away, and said he was headed back to the car to keep the dog entertained if Greg needed him. 

So, crossed state lines it was, and there was already someone back at an office running info down in similar murders, because nothing said 'freak show' like a body that had huge bite marks. It made him think of the head back at the lab, the one Chuck had been so excited about, and he kept his mouth shut. It wasn't time to say anything. Not yet.

"You called, so what is it that you need, exactly?"

Gil was kneeling down by the body, tweezers and collection jar in hand.

"They want the feds" -- and the shorthand was really a classy touch there -- "to collect and run the DNA." And he was bristling because Will had answered the phone, and because Will was still there.

Like he even had the right.

"I put my kit in the trunk of the car. I'll get it, help with the collection, take it back to the lab," Greg offered. "If you need me to, I'll get Jack Crawford to call and verify that it's all right."

"I spoke to Mr. Crawford." And no call from Jack. Jack was probably going to wait until sunrise the next day. Jack had possibly called his landline if not.

Figured. "Give me a few minutes." To keep from strangling him while he got his stuff.

Will was sitting on his tailgate, hands on his knees while Mal plodded back with a stick in his mouth. "So. You still good?"

Shrugging, Greg reached for the passenger side toolbox that held his kit. "Yeah. I'm still good. Apparently he's already talked to Crawford, so... I'm just wondering why they didn't go ahead and send somebody out who actually does this job." Except for the notion of economy.

"Because Gil asked for you and Jack's a shit-stirrer sometimes. He's probably pissed he got the call, too." Will leaned a little, looked past Greg towards the scene. "Shouldn't take too long."

"Nah. They're gonna take the body to the local coroner afterwards. Gil said he'd make the call, get somebody to come over." He shrugged. "I'm sorry. At least he's not... he won't...." Ask Will to try and delve into the minds around him. Ask Greg to touch anything without his gloves.

"Yeah. Not yet. We'll get there in a couple of days as hits start to come up, people start to run the information we get. I bet by Tuesday, yeah."

Greg let his mouth quirk. "Not Grissom. He won't ask. Crawford, maybe."

"Greg. Come look at this."

He shot Will an apologetic look. "I'll...."

"It's okay, Greg. Really." He waved the stick a little after he took it from Mal. "I'm good here."

Good, and yeah. Yeah, he leaned close, tilted his head, gave Will the opportunity to turn him away if he wanted to. Will didn't. He didn't, and though it wasn't the same wild, carried away kiss he'd gotten back home, it was still good, pressure and sweet and wanting.

"Sorry," he said again, but it made him smile now. Gil was probably pissed. It was funny that he didn't care. Once upon a time he'd have been in knots wondering if Gil was watching, wondering if he gave a damn, how things would be between them when they got home. Sara had always laughed at that, kissed him for it, told him he was being an idiot. Probably he was, all things considered. Hindsight being twenty-twenty and all, he had to admit it was highly likely.

No wonder Sara had finally gotten past Gil and his bullshit. Will was still smiling when he pulled back. "I promise not to start a fight with him after." Yeah, because Will would win.

"That's good. I'll, uh..." He picked up his kit and nodded his head in the direction of the body. "I'll be back. Then we'll head to the lab and maybe back to my place."

"Greg!" He knew that sharp tone, just like he knew he'd been pushing it.

He turned back towards Gil, trying not to get too pissed off at that tone of voice because what the hell. He was volunteering. There were other people from the lab, and it was the weekend. Gil could go fuck himself.

The freedom in that thought was a good one, and it buoyed his way through the evidence collection process. They weren't casting the bites yet -- the coroner needed to do his thing, and Greg figured they'd send Chuck over to do his thing there. Still, it was interesting to feel free, to feel like he'd made the right choice, that he was still making them. That he could make those good choices. He wasn't talking to Gil, but Gil had made that choice for himself, had gone off on Greg and really pulled the carpet out from under the request to still be friends. Friends weren't usually pissed off when your boyfriend answered the phone. It wasn't like he had any right to be pissed, anyway, after the way things had gone down.

By the time they finished, Greg felt okay, even if Gil was a glowering presence on the other side of the body. "So. I can take things back to Quantico, I guess. Assuming you're going with the locals."

"Back to their lab," Gil confirmed, still looking tense. "I'm sorry I disturbed you, I just thought..."

"I know." He did know, but he couldn't do that anymore. Couldn't be Gil's when Gil might pick up and walk off at any time, the next pretty face that came his way and got persistent enough. "I'll see you later."

"Right. I'll probably be by Monday..." If the locals didn't beat him to it. As it was, he was just going to hand off the swabs, and it was stupid, but Gil had probably envisioned them working together, going back and forth on the evidence.

"Sure." Easy as that, because yeah. He was going by the lab, and then going home with Will. He might worry about Gil, about what was going to happen between them. Might. It was a good bet that Will would keep him from doing that.

"I'll see you then." And he might apologize for his asinine tone, and for treating Greg like he was a CSI trainee who'd just peed at the crime scene. He started back towards the parking lot, ducking under the crime scene tape. Will was nowhere to be seen until he made his way to the truck and peered into the bed.

He looked ridiculously comfortable, curled on his side, Mal panting beside him as he gnawed on a rawhide. Greg knew the bed couldn't be as comfortable as Will made it look, even with the liner. "Decide to have a nap?"

"Yep. You wrapped up?" He started to sit up slowly, shifting a hip sideways before he stretched out his legs and scruffed the top of Mal's head. "Mal got wind of the body, so it was play keep away with him or play nap time."

Wow, yeah. That sounded terribly disgusting, even though Greg had seen a couple of cases that involved pets and dead owners. There had been a Maine Coon once that... Yeah. "Yeah. I'm done. If we can run these by the lab, we can go home."

"Good. C'mon, boy, back in the cab." While Will got out semi-athletically, he turned around to heft Mal out himself. "I don't need to go rough up Grissom?"

He shook his head, and reached down to pet Mal where he was snuffling at his knee. "Nah. There's not any point in that. He'll get over it, I'll get over it, we'll all.... it'll be okay."

"I think this shit's normal for some people," Will drawled, opening up the cab and holding the door open encouragingly for Mal.

Greg opened the passenger side door and climbed in, shutting it behind him. "Calling your ex to go to a crime scene?" Yeah. Normal in what world?

"Calling your ex to go to a crime scene and expecting things to fall into place like they used to. Not that I'd try it with any of mine, but my tastes were sort of worse than yours, sometimes." Will gave Mal's butt a helping hand, and waited for Mal to wiggle into the seat behind them.

"Worse?" Greg raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, so, my ex is a bug-obsessed introvert who's decided I'm better than nothing. I'm a little worried about what you mean by worse."

"When he tries to eat your heart, I'll agree that he beats my list," Will grinned. And damn, right. Right. But Will grinned, and Greg had a feeling that he was why Will was grinning, easy and happy. "And if he does, I'm not responsible for anything I might do."

A little shudder crossed his shoulders and down his spine. "If he tries to have dinner and I'm the entree, I totally give you all rights to do whatever you like. Especially if it means you can keep me whole."

"I like you in one piece." Will waited for him to be seat-belted in before he slid the key in and started his truck up. "Let's go drop this off and call it a night."

Greg glanced across at him hopefully. "And maybe we can pick up where we left off? If you want. I mean, we don't have to."

"I'd like to." Will put the truck in reverse, and glanced in the rearview. "We're going to have to work up to it again, but uh, that's not such a hardship."

"Not so you'd notice, no." No, because maybe this time Greg could be the one on his knees, and he wouldn't be there so long he had to swallow. Just long enough to make it good, and he could do that, make Will love it.

"Then, let's pretend our phones don't work, when we get back to... your place?" It was sort of closer to the office, yeah.

"My place," he agreed, and Will turned into traffic, heading towards the lab so that they could drop off the samples.

The roads weren't too bad considering it was Saturday evening, so they made it to Greg's apartment within an hour. Tension ramped up between them steadily the entire time, and Greg's skin was prickling with it by the time Will parked.

Sex, interrupted sucked, and he wanted to have not answered the phone when Gil called. Now they had to re-settle, and get naked again, and Greg was sort of wishing he could... well, he'd made the right choices at the place, and Will was grinning while they piled out of the truck.

"C'mon, Mal. I've got treats in the kitchen." In the form of bacon flavored strips and Mal knew it, panting his way towards the stairs. He shuffled up the first few steps on his way to Greg's apartment before Will caught up and managed to pick him up.

He was kind of a big, big dog to heft around like that, but Will seemed to prefer that to having Mal get himself all sore and achy. "Atta boy. You've had a pretty exciting day, huh, Mal?"

The dog barked, loud and happy, and Greg laughed, dancing up the stairs ahead of them. "Yeah. Fetch and a big dead body and now bacon flavored treats. Sounds pretty awesome from a dog's point of view."

"Better than a new movie and dinner out," Will told Greg, setting Mal down gently on the landing. He barked again, and headed for the door to Greg's apartment, pawing at the door. Greg keyed it open and let him waddle his way inside. Mal sneezed, but he headed straight to the kitchen for his treat.

"You hungry? Because I'm starving. I could eat a horse, or... you know, whatever's in the fridge that's remotely edible."

"I could eat." Could, sure. Will could eat just like Greg could eat, except Will generally forgot if someone wasn't telling him to do it.

"C'mon. I've got some stuff in the refrigerator." Leftovers from a couple of nights before when they'd made spaghetti, and he was pretty sure he had something resembling vegetables in there. He grabbed the treat bag first, and drew out three strips. He went ahead and gave the first one to him and laid the others on the counter for later.

"I'll help you scrape it together." Will's fridge generally looked better stocked, but they'd been over there more.

"Yeah, that's good. You want me to throw together some garlic toast?" He was pretty sure there was some in the freezer, so he wouldn't have to check to see if he actually had a loaf of bread or anything.

"If you're offering, yes. I'm glad we both like garlic." Will moved to wash his hands at the sink before he headed for the fridge.

"Yeah, well, there's something intrinsically wrong with people who don't," he shot back, pulling out the bread and then rummaging for a pot so Will could warm up the spaghetti. Once he had that laid out, he washed his hands, quick and easy. He wasn't particularly expecting Will to lean in to him, kiss his cheek briefly before he turned to get their food from the fridge.

This, doing this, felt like home. Felt right, and it was nice, having his choices verified for him. He'd never really gotten that before so it made him glow a little bit, somewhere in the middle of him. "Thanks."

"Mmhm, because this is completely altruistic on my behalf. It's not like I get to spend time with a handsome, intelligent professional who likes garlic bread _and_ my dog. And me." Will pulled the spaghetti out of the fridge, and the salad. It looked like it'd seen better days so Greg wasn't too surprised that he grabbed the lettuce and carrots, too.

The oven beeped when he turned it on and he started laying out the bread on the baking sheet. "You're just a charitable kinda guy, I guess. I mean, it explains all of the really ugly dogs. Not you, Mal. You're still pretty handsome, especially compared to Rudy.

"Man, Rudy was a great dog, too. Even with the piece of his jaw missing." Will stepped over to the sink and started to rinse the lettuce."

"Seriously. I don't even know how to address that." But Will had loved the damn dog, and Greg probably would have, too. He loved Mal, who was panting on his kitchen floor, and who slobbered like a slobbering thing sometimes. "How many pieces you want?"

"Two?" Will started to break lettuce apart. "It's funny. It helps when they're smart."

"Yeah." Brains helped pretty much everything. They were a requirement for any form of attraction in Greg's opinion. Some things were a vital necessity, and Greg had long since accepted that brains outdid looks any day of the week. Of course, it was nice when they came in the same package. "Give me the spaghetti and I'll put it on."

They worked well together in the kitchen, and Will moved fast, handed him the spaghetti and started to chop up the carrot. "I'm completely flattered."

"You should be completely flattered. You are awesome and worthy of flattery. Well, that or I'm kinda biased. Could be either one." Greg scrounged a spoon out of the drawer by the stove and used it to dump all of the spaghetti into the pot. He poked at it a minute, turned on the eye, and then turned back to the fridge for the remains of the spaghetti sauce.

"If you could read my mind right now, well. The bias goes both ways. We could start a mutual appreciation society."

He dumped the rest of the sauce into the pot and laughed. "Yeah. You wanna watch a movie while we eat?" The stove beeped, so he picked up the baking sheet and slid it in to start cooking.

"Mm. What movies?" Will was amiable to anything but slasher horror flicks, Greg had learned, which was generally easier than Gil and his love of just noir.

He licked his fingers clean of the spaghetti sauce he'd managed to get on them and leaned a hip against the counter so he could watch Will. "Your pick."

Will was putting the carrots and the salad remainders and the lettuce into a bowl, and working his hands through it to mix. "We... could watch something absurdist? Python? _Meaning of Life_ is always good."

"I'm pretty sure I've got it. Well, if I've unpacked it, anyway. I'm pretty sure I saw _Holy Grail_ in the cabinet the other day." He might end up falling asleep halfway through it, but that just meant Will could find a good way to wake him up.

He felt weird and drained, and Will was probably picking that up and probably picking up Greg picking up that he picked up, and yeah. When Will changed plans because he was reading his mind, that was okay. Will was chuckling as he popped Greg's fridge open to get dressing. "You find the movie, I'll get everything out here finished."

"God, I love you." And then some, so he reached out, caught Will by the waist, and gave him a quick kiss.

Any boyfriend who could give a blowjob and then not get all knotted up over the interruption was a keeper. And maybe, maybe his evening might recover. Their evening.

Greg had high hopes for it.

~*~*~*~

He'd fallen asleep on Will's shoulder before they'd gotten as far in as the Black Knight. It was endearing, even with the faint rumbles of snoring that had snuck up now and then.

The sad part was that he'd fallen asleep within another half an hour and only woke up when the DVD went back to the main menu.... maybe. He wasn't sure he hadn't slept through a couple of hours of it since he hadn't looked at the clock. Instead he'd nudged Greg, who'd kind of stirred, blinked at him, and obediently stumbled along towards the bed when Will ushered him in that direction.

He'd turned off the DVD player and the TV, and went with him, crawling into bed with Greg. The intimacy with Greg, the closeness and the touching and the kisses, the openness of his mind, made it easier to push back the feelings of horror, those moments where Will was sure he was going to trigger and snap back into himself. He could be less in his own mind than in Greg's, and that was cheating in a way.

Cheating felt good when it was like that, though, and waking up with sun spilling around the edges of the blinds, the easy horniness of half-asleep morning desire coming from beside him. Greg slept sprawled out, a pillow tucked in one elbow as if it might get away, but he also tended to gravitate towards Will in the middle of the night. At that moment, he had one arm wrapped around his pillow and one leg shoved over both of Will's, starting to squirm a little.

There was no jagged nerviness, worry stabbing into his head like knives, no fear, no grief -- grief for things not yet lost, not yet gone, but soon, soon, always soon, and god she'd been right -- and Will pushed that back and opened himself to the squirm and the warm haze.

"G'mornin'." Mumbled, half-muffled in a pillow, but Greg was waking up and he was happy. Pleased, because Will was still there, awake and nudging towards him. "Fell asleep."

"I did, too." After, because he'd liked the wallow, liked just listening to Greg sleep more than he liked the movie, which said a lot since he liked the movie.

He watched as Greg shifted, stretched, yawned a morning-breath sort of yawn. "Could get up and brush my teeth. We could...." There was a brush of delicious thought there that he wanted.

Will supposed his breath was on par. Mal was sleeping, still, which was good. He'd need to be let out when he got up. "Yeah. We could." He wanted to. He wanted to try it, see how far they got, wanted to do it without the intrusion of Greg's ex.

Greg leaned in, pecked his mouth against Will's. He was pretty sure they were both deadly after eating garlic bread last night, but it was tempting to ignore that and kiss him anyway. Greg rolled to the side of the bed then, though, and headed for the bathroom, boxers listing a little down his left hip. "Just a minute."

"Uhm." Greg had to piss, and Will could sympathize, but he'd never really been inclined towards sharing a toilet. Hell, even Molly had called him a prissy bitch on occasion because of it. Showering, pissing, brushing his teeth, whatever, Will wasn't good at sharing bathroom space.

It took a couple or three minutes, and then Greg wandered back in, yawning. He smelled minty, but still sleep-warm and willing. "Hey."

"My turn. I shouldn't be the only one to benefit from nice breath." He'd probably move faster than Greg, just on basis of wanting to be back to bed soon while Greg was still that sleep-warm and dozy.

He limped to the bathroom, knee catching under him a little, and took a leak first. There was an extra toothbrush in the medicine cabinet, and so he gave his teeth a cursory brush, getting the worst of the taste out of his mouth.

It was nice that by the time he got back, Greg was still lying with his eyes half-closed, and he hardly moved when Will put his good knee on the mattress to settle back in with him, close enough to kiss him. "So, where were we yesterday?"

"Hmmm." He squirmed lazily under the arm Will had over him, turning towards him and stretching. "I think you were gonna fuck me. I'm still on board with that."

"Cool." Will did, pressed his mouth against Greg's, felt the warmth and the heat and the pressure and the pleasure and just sank into it. He wanted to get Greg wound up first, wanted to get him feeling like he had the night before -- open and loose and relaxed from head to toe.

Greg shifted, letting Will come over him, his entire body shifting to fall into line with him. "Hmm, yeah, definitely cool." Beyond cool, because Greg was squirming a little, and yeah. His boxers were coming off, and Will reached down to help him out with that, stroke them a little further down so that he could kick them loose.

His own boxers were easy to get off, and it gave a little extra body against body friction which was nice when Greg was already hard and eager. Will reached down, closed his hand around Greg and rubbed his thumb over the head of his cock, getting a murmur of sound and a wash of pure enjoyment that flooded into his mind.

He wanted to wallow in it, wanted to bottle that enjoyment and open it up every day. Technically, he supposed he could open Greg up every day, or at least give him a decent hand job often enough that he'd coast on it. "When you like something, it feels the best."

"I like that." It was obvious, and it made Will want to laugh. "I like that a lot. I'm kind of greedy, in case you were wondering." Greedy and pulling Will in, arms and legs both, rocking up a little.

"Good. And that's not altruistic." The rocking against his hand, against his body, sent a thrill up, down, Will's spine, up Greg's? "This has a texture to it, joy and consent, and warmth that I never want to forget."

"I don't want you to, either." No, and Greg reached up, cupped the back of his neck and tugged him down. Mouth to mouth, and Greg was panting a little into the kiss because Will's hand was stroking, touching, making it easy for Greg to push into it.

He wanted to get Greg wound up and loose again, relaxed and sated, because foreplay took a while in Will's book, and he wanted it to, and if he could wring two orgasms from a lover, that was fantastic. That made Will happiest, and he twisted his thumb a little, dipping to press differently.

"Fuck!" Fuck, because it was good, and Will knew it was, knew better than anyone. Greg threw his head back on the pillows and pushed up again, pushing, pushing for more, just as ravenous as he'd said.

Beautiful and horny early in the morning, when everything was lazy and sharp at the same time, different when it was late and you were tired and done from the day, the long day. He kept stroking, and considered shifting down to mouth Greg. Just the thought of it seemed to transmit through his hands, through the way he touched, and it was enough. Greg gave a sound and came, shuddering through it because he knew that Will liked that. Liked him coming first, liked him pushing into his hand and coming, liked the flush of pleasure that flooded into his mind.

Better than any foreplay for himself, better than any stroking, rubbing, that two-fold balance of reality in his hand and feeling in his head. Will kissed him, kissed that sound, kissed Greg's lips and leaned up a little, trying not to stifle Greg's body while he gave slow, leisurely strokes now.

He could feel the stretch of it, feel the way he was coming down off of it in a delicious slide, clouded and blissful. "Jesus. One of these days, you're gonna kill me like this."

"Only if natural causes conspire on you." He laid down beside Greg, against his side, facing him and letting his sticky hand drift to Greg's hip. He was as hard as a rock, and so far he hadn't been able to do much with an erection since everything.

He watched, saw the way he licked his lips, still breathing a little hard, coming down. Not entirely; just a little. "There's lube in the nightstand. Bottom drawer. Condoms, too."

"Okay." Will didn't want to, but he pulled away just enough to lean and reach to pull open the nightstand, popping the drawer open long enough to dig for the lube and condoms. There were other interesting things in there, things that he'd delve into later, but for now he rolled back up, curved himself against Greg just in time for the phone to ring.

Greg gave a huff of breath. "I don't care if they're calling to say that the end of the world is in half an hour. That's half an hour for you to fuck me."

"Answering machine gonna get it?" It rang again, and Will just pressed close to Greg, sort of half opening a condom.

"Yeah." Yeah, and he shifted, got Will comfortably behind him, sprawling just a little so it would be convenient for Will to get his fingers exactly where they both wanted them. "Even if it wasn't, I wouldn't care much."

"If it's important, they'll call back later." Will kissed Greg behind the ear, working out what position he liked best while he got in close to him, opening the lube and letting the condom get smooshed beneath them for a minute.

"Don't care if they do." He really didn't, either. He just cared that Will slicked his fingers, slipped them inside, followed them with his dick. Cared that Will got pleasure out of this, because he might be greedy, but he wasn't selfish, and the idea that Will hadn't gotten to come yet flitted between them.

"You'd be shocked at how much pleasure I get from you. It's almost unfair," Will murmured, kissing Greg's neck while he slid his middle finger down Greg's ass crack, tracing teasingly towards his hole. He could feel the way Greg unconsciously tightened in anticipation, feel the frisson of expectation, almost presentiment, that ran through his mind.

"I don't know. I don't think it is. I mean..." His fingertip slid lightly, slickly across, and Greg's mouth and mind both stuttered to a stop. "Oh."

"I feel everything you feel," Will pointed out, pressing more kisses against Greg's neck and feeling that pressure, light and wet and soft, but more the finger when he circled back, lingered, pressed in.

"Oh god." Oh god was right, because he enjoyed that, Greg, Will/Greg, the skitter of thought that was all pleasure under Will's hand. "Oh. That's...." Dirty in a good way, and Greg pushed back for more.

The answering machine was blabbing away in the living room, and neither of them cared enough to try and pay attention to it. There were better things to concentrate on, to do, and Greg fumbled a hand back to Will, reaching for him.

"If you could tap into this, I don't think we'd ever get out of bed." It was half a promise, because Will liked that, pressed up against Greg from behind, bare skin on bare skin, his fingers slowly pressing into Greg.

Low murmurs of enjoyment, audible and in thought, came in stereo. The hand he had on Will's hip stroked slowly, echoed the enjoyment he was getting from Will's touch in a wave of motion. "God, I don't... I don't know why I'd ever get out of bed now."

Will supposed that feeling what he was doing in an intimate way did make him a better lover. He could tell when he was doing it wrong, when it wasn't good enough, and he could tell when it was, when it was like this and his partner was just enjoying the slide of slick fingers, getting him loose and worked up.

"Jesus, this is...." Good, and he was squirming, pushing back to Will's fingers, his hand letting go of Will's hip so that he could get purchase on the bed in front of himself. "This is... please. Please, I want...." He was shivering with it, and the phone started ringing again in the other room.

Fuck. Fuck them. It wasn't anything important, and Will just wanted to fuck Greg, not to stop, wanted to fumble for the condom under his hip and finish opening it one handed, with teeth. His fingers were still working, and it was awkward, but Greg was sparking with it, completely rock hard again, and it felt so damn good, right down to the core of him.

He was sure he was at least as hard as Greg was, hard enough that when he rolled the condom down over himself he ached. There was nothing tantric, nothing slow about sex like that, though maybe they could enjoy slow later, because Greg wanted it, ached for it when Will pulled out his fingers and spread more lube over the top of the condom.

"Like this?" Greg asked, looking back over his shoulder. "Do you want it like this? I can move. However you want."

"I like this. I can feel all of you." Back to his front, lying down, completely non-familiar but still intimate position because he could already feel his brain reaching for comparison, and he could see the damn gym mat he'd been on, but he could also see the hair at the nape of Greg's neck, wispy and soft and he could feel Greg, when he shifted in to press the head of his dick up against him.

"God." God, yeah, because it felt so good. So good, and he pushed back at the same time as Will pushed in, and that was tight, hot, perfect. He groaned, and Greg did at the same time, the sound out loud mingling in his ears the same way the feeling blended in his head.

Once he was in, pressed in deep, he didn't need to guide himself, he could move his hands and did, moved them up to Greg's side, his waist, anywhere he could touch and brace himself while he started the long slide out.

He hadn't thought he'd want this again, maybe not ever, but here it was. Here he was, dick-deep in Greg, who enjoyed it, was enjoying it to the core of him, murmuring encouragement and trying to shift so that he could get more of Will, get him back in. "This is...." Yes. Yes, it was. Lovely and warm and Will tried to move smoothly, sliding fingers down across Greg's body, down to his dick while he started to fuck him. "Yeah. Yeah, I... oh fuck, that's... Will, that's... I want. I want..." He wanted it, wanted fucking deep, hard, slow or fast, didn't seem to matter which. He just wanted, and that was so good to feel. So good to be a part of, to be the one enjoying him. To reciprocate that enjoyment. For Greg to feel good like that and to feel it himself, to drift in it while he fucked, turning fucking into something that was strung out with pleasure instead of pain, stroking Greg off while he thrust.

"Will...." His name, whimpered in a way that was delicious to hear, felt like caramel in the pit of his belly, thick and gooey and warm. "Will, I'm... it's... please."

Please, and Greg wanted to come, so Will thrust that little bit faster, that little bit harder, not pounding, but enough that Greg could, would, feel it later if he wanted to. And he wanted to, wanted to know that Will had been there, been fucking him. It was almost enough to make him roll Greg onto his belly, let him sprawl out beneath him, push back, but it was good just as it was. Good to feel, good to be part of, and Greg's hands were clenching in the sheets, the noises he made something Will thought he'd never forget. He didn't want to forget noises like that, noises that should have been illegal, sighs caught up in whines and hitches, and then a sharp gasp. Sharp, because Greg was there, and the pleasure was just as bright and overwhelming as it had been earlier. His ass was clenching tight around Will's dick, and fuck. Fuck, it was so good.

Twice, it was like coming twice and his was lost in Greg's, the feedback loop there but it didn't matter because he had Greg pressed back against him, and afterwards Will let a hand idle to Greg's hip, just to hold on, hold him close. It was a little too warm, too sweaty, but it felt so damn good that he wasn't ready to let it go.

"'m gonna fall asleep again," Greg murmured finally, grabbing the sheet to wipe vaguely at the semen there. Will let him, and then wiped his fingers on it afterwards. "Wash the sheets later."

"I'll help." He wiggled his hips, pulled back enough that he could use his one hand to pull the condom off, but he'd have to lean up to throw it towards a trashcan.

The little sound of regret that earned him made him smile. "I'm gonna feel that later. 's good." Crooned a little, and yeah. That made Will feel just as pleased with himself as Greg was with him.

He laid back down, and pressed his face in against the back of Greg's shoulder for a moment. "You're warm." In all senses of the word.

"Mhm." Warm and fuzzing out, back into sleep a little. Maybe even a lot. Will didn't mind, because it was the best excuse in the world to pull Greg in closer, his back to Will's chest, Will's left arm sort of awkwardly stuck in there because there was really nowhere for it to go but numb, but it felt good to be that close, that comfortable.

That trusted.

They dozed for a while, half awake and sticky with sweat and semen. Mal grumbled a few times from the floor, but it wasn't anything serious -- he wasn't ready to go out yet, Will could tell. Mostly, he was just glad that his humans had decided to settle down.

He halfway thought that he was dreaming the sound when it came, steady rapping in sets of three, and then banging in groups of five. Greg stirred beside him, though, lifted his head from the pillow. His cheek was creased just a little. "I think somebody's knocking. I'm gonna...." Yeah. He was looking for his boxers and moving unsteadily out of Will's grasp.

Will rolled onto his back, and heard a couple of vertebra pop in protest before he sat up groggily. He was starting to feel the sore muscles from the fun of the day before. They were definitely going to have to do that again.

He watched Greg rub his face, snagging a t-shirt from the floor. He wasn't sure whose it was, and it didn't matter all that much. All that mattered was that he didn't answer the door mostly naked, and he was good for that. "I'll be back."

Like Will was going to stay there. He waited a half beat and then moved to shadow after Greg once he'd pulled on shorts. It still felt early, so it wasn't like they were expecting to have to be answering doors. In Will's experience, visitors out of hours were good reason to be suspicious, even more so once he knew who was standing on the other side of the door. The relaxation he'd been feeling started to fade, stress reaction keying up before Greg opened the door.

"Let me in, kid. We've got a case."

Sheer stubborn obstinacy radiated out in waves. "We don't have anything," Greg told Jack, but he opened the door anyway.

Jack looked like shit -- tired, faded at the edges, and Will could tell that he felt like shit, too. "Yeah, well. Some guy went and casted a few bites on a victim at that crime scene you got called to yesterday. Turns out we got a match from some swan head, and another possible match on a whore someplace in Georgia."

Will folded his arms over his chest, eyeing Jack and his worn thin feeling, trying not to open himself up to it, but all of his ability to focus was blown away after having been so open with Greg. "Who was running castings at, what, six at night?"

"Chuck." Greg answered instead of Jack, and it was odd. "He was really fascinated by that swan. I figure he'd duck out of whatever date he had to do it, even if she planned to smack his ass and call him Sally."

Interesting. Will felt himself pulling a face and rubbed at his side in half a stretch. "Good for Chuck." And now 'they' had a case, and he had just wanted to enjoy his weekend time with Greg. Hell, he'd gotten over an enormous personal hurdle, and there was Jack.

It was like there was some shining beacon guiding Jack to Will just when he thought life might be okay. Maybe it was some kind of singular psychic talent only possessed by Jack Crawford, to know when Will was ready for him to show up and fuck things up again. "Yeah, well. I want you to come down to the lab, touch a few things. Figured you were wearing gloves last night."

"He was," Will agreed, still half-tempted to stare Jack down. He'd gone looking for Will first, though it was hard to tell if he was looking for Will there or looking for Greg there. He wondered if it really mattered, and Jack didn't seem bothered one way or the other as to which of them he found.

They were still lingering in the door so Greg pulled it the rest of the way open and gave a half-hearted wave of his hand. "Sit down. We both need a shower and you can wait that long."

"Thanks, kid." And there was a thought at Will, like did he know what he was getting into with a kid like Greg? And what the hell, it was hard not to rise up to that and take Jack apart for it. 

"Don't let Mal eat you. He hasn't been walked yet."

"Maybe you could take him for a walk." Greg was a little sadistic in making the suggestion. "I know how well you get along. You want the first shower?" he offered to Will. "I need to throw a load of clothes in the wash before we get going."

He wanted a joint shower, but that wasn't going anywhere. Will nodded, and leaned in close to Greg, touching his shoulder for a second. "Yeah, I'll be right back out."

Greg followed him into the bedroom, starting to strip the sheets as Will went in to start the shower. He needed to shave, but he could put it off another day or so, he figured, stepping under the spray and reaching for the shampoo. It wasn't like he had his beard trimmer here, and while the idea of using the groomer Greg had in the drawer under the sink was amusing, he just wasn't going to do it.

He liked his face up against Greg's crotch in a more traditional way. 

Will made short work of the shower, though, and he toweled himself off hastily before coming out to pull on the clothes he had stuck in a drawer because he and Greg did enough sleeping over that it was half necessary. Mal was still on the floor half-asleep, but he gave a wuff of greeting and started to lever himself up from the floor.

Another wuff greeted Greg as he came in, a load of fresh towels in his arms. "These were in the dryer. I tossed the sheets in to wash. You need anything?"

"I'll take Mal and Jack outside while you shower," Will offered, tying his shoes on.

"That would be awesome. It looks like Crawford's on the verge of croaking right there on the couch, and seriously. I like that couch, Will. I don't want to have to get rid of it because somebody left behind those kinds of bad vibes." He leaned in, still smelling like sex and sleep a little, and gave him a quick kiss.

Will particularly liked the couch's vibes, so he wasn't going to let Jack muddy them, and that meant getting him up, out, into fresh air. Will kissed Greg back, and then patted his hip and waited for Mal to join him in the hallway. "C'mon."

The dog panted after him, walking his crooked walk until he saw Crawford. That was the signal to set up barking, loud and warningly, as if to announce that there was someone there who didn't belong. Couldn't belong, and he was going to eat him for breakfast.

"One of these days, you'll get one of those damn dogs and it'll eat me for breakfast," Jack grumbled.

"Nah. He'll probably have tooth decay and give up after the first couple of bites," Will drawled, reaching down carefully to touch and pet the back of Mal's head. Mal associated Jack with bad things, with Will not being there, with his routines being tipped upside down and inside out. "C'mon, Mal. We're going for a walk, and Jack's coming with us."

"So he can eat me behind a bush so the kid doesn't get implicated?" It was grumbly, but Jack got up anyway and headed for the door.

Mal didn't have a leash. Generally, he didn't need one. He stayed close to Will, and he didn't move all that fast even when his hips lined up occasionally for a good day. Will stepped out onto the landing, Mal with him, and locked up once Jack was out of the apartment.

"Huh. You've got a key." It didn't surprise Jack. It was statement for the sake of the statement itself. "He's something else."

"Is there any particular reason for Greg being something else, or...?" Will pocketed his key. Hell, he and Greg were still working out what they were doing and that was fine by Will. He liked the lack of definition.

Jack shook his head slowly, watched him pick up Mal to take him down the stairs. "I think he might stick. He's a good kid. Maybe he takes on too much sometimes, but hell. I usually ask for too much." He fumbled for the cigarettes in his jacket pocket. "And I know it. Just... I've still gotta ask."

"Greg's... good. Really, intensely good." Goofy, and he did have spiteful thoughts, but Will was in people's heads enough to know the line between normal day to day spite and extended badness, and Greg was so far over on the funny and normal side despite everything he'd been through, personally. "So, I might as well go in and start working up a profile on this guy."

"Yeah." Yeah, and he'd been looking for both of them. No big surprise there. "Alan's coming in. I know you like him better than Braxton. I sent Gutierrez down to talk to the hooker."

"I do like Alan better than Braxton." There was something about Alan, shuttered, like he was afraid that if Will saw into his head he'd go running. Alan considered him like some kind of exotic animal, but he never treated Will badly, and he advocated for him more times than anyone else had.

Alan was a one man Will Graham Preservation Society for a while there.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Will crouched down, set Mal on the ground, and waited for him to straighten up his hip. They'd played fetch a little too long the night before, and Mal was stiff for it.

"Yeah. I know." That was all Jack said, and they both set off in a steady walk after Mal as he kicked out the stiffness, sniffing every bush he passed. None of them seemed to suit him until he found a holly bush halfway to the next building, and then he awkwardly squatted instead of lifting his leg.

Next time he went to the vet, Will would need to remember to ask if there was something he could give him to help with that. He'd had something to give him for a while, but Mal went in fits and starts with serious discomfort, and obviously one was starting up again. He'd call once the case was over because Will was going to be useless for making appointments and meetings until it was.

"So, how've you been?"

It was obvious how he'd been. Bad, written all over him, in the faint tremble of his fingers and the indigestion that was gnawing at Jack badly enough that Will registered it. "You know how it is. Busy. Getting by. The kids are making noises about Thanksgiving, but it's a long trip to Montana."

"You should go." Because he looked like shit, and the FBI was cold comfort compared to family and things involving people.

"When this is done." Except nothing was ever finished, not with the Behavioral Unit. Not really.

"Go anyway. There's always gonna be another damn case, Jack. And other people." Mal was sniffing another bush, and looking thoughtfully like he wanted to eat it. At least it wasn't holly.

He knew why Jack didn't want to go. He'd spent most of their lives chasing the next case, and there wasn't anything resembling closeness between Jack and his kids. "Yeah. That's the honest truth. Maybe I will."

Except he wouldn't, and Will got a funny flash that might have been precognition or just a natural conclusion about the end of life for a workaholic of Jack's nature.

Will was a workaholic but when the opportunity came to enjoy something, he took it. He seized it and held on tight for as long as he could. Jack didn't seem to want life that much. "Greg's got a coworker from back home who's threatening to come visit."

"Huh." Mal squatted again, and yeah. He probably should have brought a bag. He'd have to come back down once Greg was dressed and ready to go, but Mal had food upstairs, and he'd be okay left alone. "Maybe. Anyway. This case. I know it's gonna taste bad to you, considering."

"Yeah. Biting's never a good sign." And cases. He'd been in the heads of students, teachers, all sorts of minds and thoughts, but it was still vastly different from that kind of predator. He had a good thing now with Greg. If he did what Jack wanted, it would change things. He'd be changed by it, and he'd had years with Molly destroyed. Would this, now, be able to withstand it?

Jack took the last drag on his cigarette and bent down to crush it out on the sidewalk. "Yeah. This guy... I dunno. A hooker, a swan, and a dead guy? There's something damn off about it."

"I'll see what he is when I get a better look at it. I'm trying to work on making space in my head for me sometimes." So Jack wasn't going to get sidewalk free association this time.

Mal seemed to be finished, because he walked forwards with a grunt and started heading back towards Greg's place. "Yeah. The kid burned my ass about a couple things. Before. I figured he'd be working on that kind of thing with you."

Will shadowed him towards the stairs, waiting to pick him up, because Mal was a kind of stubborn dog like that. "What did he burn your ass on?"

"Said I was an asshole. Said a lot of things I already knew, mostly, and he was right." Said he was using Will, and that was what had gotten him caught by Kolya. It was true, some, but it was as much Will's fault as Jack's. He'd let it happen.

"Yeah, well. I've got the self preservation skills of a particularly suicidal lemming when I get on a case." He got so busy looking for the cougar loose in the city park that he missed the open manhole at his feet.

"Maybe. But it's the habit of a lifetime, and maybe... maybe it's time to stop. One last case."

Until the next case. Until the case after that. "My class would probably appreciate it." Classes, all of them, would appreciate it. He was one of the most rescheduled units. Maybe he could ask Greg's ex to fill in for the entomology classes. It was kind of asinine to think about it, but there was a certain enjoyment in the idea of it, too. Asking would make it obvious that he wasn't holding anything against the guy, and imply that he didn't think of him as a threat. He wasn't, and Will knew that now, blank thoughts or not.

"We're getting old for this shit."

"Jack, we were old for this shit when we started." He crouched down carefully and avoided a bad spot when he picked Mal up again. "Yeah. Who wants to spend all day being warm and happy inside?"

That got him several sharp barks, right in his ear, and Mal's tail wagged so hard that it nearly shoved him over. "So. The new tactical instructor. What do you think about him?"

"I like him. We played paint ball with him and his partner yesterday." Partner seemed like the right word, because Will wasn't sure the status of their partnership, though it seemed as intertwined as they could get in a state where gay marriage was going to be one of the last things to happen. It wasn't a forefront thought for John. There was something about Canada.

"Smartass guy. You wouldn't believe the conversation I ran into the middle of the other day, I..."

Greg opened the door about the same time they hit the landing, and blinked a little. "Hey. I put on some coffee while you were in the shower. I put your cup by the machine."

"Coffee sounds good right now." Mal wiggled forward, nudging past Greg's leg while he did it.

"Buddy, there's food in the kitchen." He already knew that, but it didn't hurt to reinforce it a little. "I'm gonna assume you're not gonna hang around much longer. We'll be along in another, what? Ten minutes?" Greg was thinking about breakfast burritos.

"I'll meet you back at the labs." Jack stepped backwards, didn't come in again, and Will looked over his shoulder at him.

"That sounds good." It wouldn't take them long, but Will wanted time to get himself together for the day. He waited for Jack to turn and head down the stairs, and he closed the door.

"You okay?" Greg was pulling out Mal's treats, but he was watching Will. "I mean...."

"Yeah." It wasn't quite his fault if he responded slowly, trying to concentrate on focusing. "He swears this is the last case."

"The last case for us or the last case for him?" He laid the treat down next to the dog food bowl and Mal promptly abandoned the food for the treat. "Kind of hard to believe."

"Same thing. No one else is going to run things like Jack. They don't treat things the same way anymore." Will moved to snag his coffee cup. "I, uh. I know you think I goof off when we do the concentration work, but it's wearing off on me."

That made a pulse of pleasure hit him, happiness because Greg thought that was a good thing. A great thing. "Yeah? That's... I'm glad. I mean, I hoped it might help."

"It does. I'm finding it easier not to walk around with my mind wide open..." Will reached to pour. It wasn't so bad unless he'd been spending a lot of time with Greg. Opening himself up to Greg was enjoyable. He didn't want to close himself off unless he had to.

That smile made trying to close himself off worth it. "Here's your cup. Can I have a kiss before we doctor it up, go looking for some breakfast on the way?"

"Yeah." It was such a hardship to lean in and kiss Greg, such sweet suffering. His mouth was soft and he tasted like coffee and toothpaste. 

"Yeah," Greg murmured when they parted. "Okay. I'd ask for another one but...."

But.

"Mmm, we have to turn it aside for a case? How do you feel about having to touch...?" It was at least a controlled interaction, and Will could only imagine that.

"Not so great. I mean, death by biting? I'm a little nervous about that. It's never been my perv of choice, if you know what I mean." He shrugged. "But I'll live. You?"

"Depends how deep I have to go. There are cases where I really just write up a profile, hash it out, and I'm done." They were few and far between, but every damn time he hoped it was one of those.

Greg licked his lips. "I think you should tell them no. If it's more than that."

"I think I should, too. Not sure I will, but I should." He took a strong sip of the coffee. "I'm me for the first time in a long time, and I want to keep it that way."

He didn't object to it -- not like Molly would have, anyway. "I guess I'll be coming with you, then, if we have to. Good with you?"

"Yeah. We can take turns telling Jack no if it gets to that point." He'd put his foot down for Greg where he might not do it for himself. Greg wasn't a telepath, but he probably knew that anyway.

Turning away, Greg started turning off the coffee, rounding up a few things. "I think that sounds like a plan. Burger King for breakfast, or that place with the scrambled egg tomato cheese... thing?" It was further away, but it was pretty damn good.

"Egg tomato cheese thing." It was probably better for them. Will sat down on the arm of Greg's sofa, pausing to lace his shoes up the right way, where he hadn't before.

The sound of jingling keys came, and Greg picked up the courier bag he usually schlepped back and forth between the lab and the house. "Okay. I'm pretty much ready. We should be back before Mal needs to go out again, right?"

"Oh yeah. Mal's ready for a big long nap on your sofa and resting. I wore him out yesterday." Hell, they'd worn themselves out, and Will was just now starting to feel the sore muscles.

"Cool." Cool, and that seemed to be enough. Will got up and headed for the door.

"He thinks unexpected trips to crime scenes are the best way to tour area parks," Will agreed, falling into step with Greg.

"Yeah, well, that seems to be mostly when he gets to go that far out. Not that he doesn't get to go, just he usually only gets to see the ones nearby. He's got all of those pretty well marked by now, so it's special when he gets to pee someplace new."

Damn. He'd forgotten to grab a bag to clean that up. He'd ignore it for the moment, and just get it if it was still undisturbed when they got back. "I hadn't thought about that. The importance of peeing in new places."

Greg just laughed at him, and headed down the stairs in a hurry. "Maybe you should."

Yeah. Maybe he would sometime because thinking about things from Mal's view of life was easy and fun. He'd hold off on it for now, though, and pull it out when he needed it.

With Jack, there was one certainty.

The time would come when he had to have it.

~*~*~*~

Will was in a conference room two floors up with more people than Greg really wanted to think about. Crawford had called in somebody else, some old guy who didn't even come to the FBI lab anymore. It was enough to make Greg twitch, but what the hell.

He was still the guy who got to be hands on with the evidence. A little too literally for his tastes, maybe.

He was going to run his hands over Will later, clear his mind with happier thoughts. That wasn't how Greg rolled, usually, but while he anticipated the horror of whatever he was going to touch, he could understand why Will would dive into happier heads when cases pressed in on him.

Swabs didn't always give him much, but the violence of the death ought to get him something. There were duplicate sets of them -- one for testing, and one for touching, because Chuck had gathered a second set of swabs for that purpose when he went to cast the bites. That was nice of Chuck, except that Greg would really rather just be doing the testing instead of putting his bare fingers on a swab that had human tissue.

Will hadn't magically appeared by the time he had the samples running. It must have been a hell of a meeting, because Greg had hoped he could put off touching anything for a little while longer. So much for that hope, he figured, and slit open the first bag.

He didn't want to touch it, and he had to pull off one glove to get to the touching part. Will would be back soon, he hoped, because then Will could witness whatever the hell he was going to see. Until then, he was going to put it off because he could, because he didn't want to touch it for so very many reasons.

Stripping off his other glove, Greg decided to head up the stairs to the conference room and see how things were going. The worst he'd find would probably be everybody yelling, or maybe having fallen asleep at the conference table.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting when he stuck his head in, but it looked... not like what he was expecting. Will had his feet up on the long table and he looked conversant, glancing over towards the doctor beside him. He looked grounded and calm and had a pen twirling between his fingers. "I'm just saying that if he's hunting up and down, he's driving constantly."

"So a traveler. We got truckers, we got business travelers between... what? D.C. and maybe Tallahassee. So, say... interstates. I-75, I-95, I-64...."

"Don't forget 81."

"Yeah, well, we gotta think about the ones running through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia...."

"We should probably get an advisory out to weigh-in stations whenever we get something together."

"Because the weigh in stations are completely going to search every truck that comes through," Will agreed, twisting a little and glancing over at Jack. He caught sight of Greg, and waved. "Hey, do you need me?"

He shrugged, moved in. "I was just getting ready to start touching the second set of samples. Figured it would be a good idea if you were there."

The guy sitting next to him perked up a little -- curiosity, Greg figured, but it didn't seem to bother Will so he wasn't going to let it bother him, either. "Jack, you didn't mention you had a psychometrist on staff."

"I, uh..." Jack cleared his throat. "He's not officially part of my team, he's a volunteer."

"If you want to come along, Alan..." Will started to stand up from his chair.

Guy -- Alan -- stood up. "I'd be interested. Statistically, it's one of the lesser evidenced psychic traits. I haven't actually seen very many people with that particular talent."

Fantastic.

"I don't mind," he said anyway, and he really didn't. Not so anyone would notice. The more the merrier.

"Alan's a... well, forensic psychiatrist," Will explained as he moved towards the door and stepped out in the hallway.

"That's gotta be a different kind of job." Forensic psychology. He wondered exactly what that involved, but not enough to ask anything. Not until they were out in the hallway, anyway.

"You analyze physical evidence, I analyze psychological evidence." That sounded straight up, and yet not at all. But Will seemed calm with him, so Greg was going to have to get him to explain it all later. 

"He has a bit of a personal interest in us, the psychic variants."

That seemed pretty obvious, at least from the way he'd tweaked to Greg's touching stuff. "So, you're coming to observe me in action. You planning to return the favor sometime?"

"It's boring, but if you're interested, of course I would be." 

Will put a hand up in the air as he shadowed after Greg. "Ah-ah, I'm sitting this one out. The last time you tried that it was too deep for my tastes. You thinking about what I was thinking while I almost thought your thoughts for you, no thanks."

"It makes mine hurt just hearing you say it out loud." It did, too, and he turned into the stairwell to head down to his lab. "Luckily, I won't have that kind of a problem."

"Alan is one of two smart guys who got the bright idea to try to have me impose myself on them. It wasn't a good call." But he still liked Alan, and let him step into the lab first, and wow. Maybe it was good that Will wasn't a concentrating kind of guy.

Greg licked his lips and went for the samples. "I usually don't get as much off of humans as I do off of objects. These are just samples -- skin cells, blood, saliva. Chuck says they're gonna send over his clothes and shoes later, and I'll probably get more off of those."

"That's fascinating." And to Alan, it really was fascinating, while mostly Will just looked amused and mellow while he waited for Greg to touch.

He took a deep breath and laid fingers on the first swab -- skin cells, and he flicked a touch over it, slow and steady, but he didn't get anything. The faintest of suggestions, maybe, and trying to force it just made his blood pressure spike. "Yeah. Nothing here." Nothing that meant anything, anyway.

Will made a faint noise. "That was like a suggestion of violence. Huh."

"Suggestion, yeah, but it might have been because I saw the body." Might have been. It wasn't enough to go on, so he reached for the bloody swab next. The idea of touching the blood was creepy in several different ways, but most of all because of the possibility of contagion. The fact that anybody thought that it might be a good idea just bothered him.

He was going to keep it brief, and then pour cleaner over his hand when he was done. Will was watching him and nodding a little. "Yeah, I find it... I think we can wait for the clothes if you want."

"I'd prefer it." Greg grimaced. "I mean, it's just... I'm not liable to get anything off of it, and it kind of gives me the heebie-jeebies, dabbling in blood when I'm not wearing gloves."

"Screw it, put the gloves back on and the swab away," Will agreed, folding his arms over his chest. "Jack wants to fuss about it, I'll give him dirty looks."

"Why do you think it doesn't work with skin or blood like clothes?"Alan asked, staring at Greg a little like a fascinating pet.

Reaching for a pair of gloves, Greg shrugged. "I dunno. I think the problem is that once skin cells, blood, tissue, whatever, gets separated from the human body, it goes dead. I can get a read off of something live -- especially if they have some other kind of psychic ability. It gets garbled, though, because you can't tell what's now or five minutes ago or five years ago without some effort. Objects are better because they're generally in use for a finite period of time and then laid back down."

"What I'd do to really understand the mechanisms. Thought, left on objects. Does everything we interact with change when we touch it?" It sounded rhetorical, and Will leaned to set a hand on the tabletop.

He started putting the swabs back into evidence pouches and closing them. "Mostly only when there are strong emotions attached. Bad days or extreme excitement. Difficult emotional blips in either direction means it's more likely I'll get something. Sometimes I get something off of everyday objects, especially if it's an item the same person touches every day for the same reason."

"Dog toys," Will agreed.

"Or clothes from a case." Alan nodded slightly, mouth compressed tightly. "And you process it, and put it down as case information."

Greg wobbled his head back and forth. "Eeeeh, well, not necessarily? It depends on what kind of verification we get on it. It's... the last place I worked, whatever I got was discounted pretty automatically. Everything was strict evidence protocol. Here...."

"This isn't the backbone of the case," Will supplied for him. "Though it's all very admissible in court after it's been documented."

"I've vouched for enough of your testimony, yes," Alan said a little sheepishly. "It just seems so vastly different from what you do."

"It kind of is." Greg wasn't sure how to differentiate it, exactly. "A precog gets flashes of the future. I get flashes of emotions, scenes from the past. Will gets what people are thinking in the here and now. At the very least, it's a different time period we get a view of."

"I thought Will got pieces of the pa--"

"Only because people are constantly running that through their heads," Will cut in. "There's this one girl in the forensics class who thinks about her ex-boyfriend often enough that I could pick him out of a lineup."

"Picking up what they're thinking right now doesn't exclude the fact that people think of the past, or worry about the future." Greg fidgeted the last swab into a bag. "And a lot of people have a touch of something psychic about them. It just doesn't always manifest fully, so you've got telepaths reading not-quite-precogs sometimes. And god only knows what else."

"And I can't tell the difference between a not-quite-precog, and someone with active fantasies about the future." Will shrugged it. "Who was bringing the clothes by?"

"Chuck didn't say. I figure they'll send over a uniform with 'em. He said it'd be sometime this afternoon, once the guys over at their crime scene unit finished with them." Greg wasn't going to get those samples yet, not while D.C. was still trying to hold onto the case despite the fact that Crawford was probably going to be wrangling them for it.

"If you get done running the DNA down here, do you wanna come back up to the meeting room and watch us pretend to be professional?" 

When Will said it, Alan laughed a little, a comfortable sound.

"Sounds like a plan. I'm mostly at a stopping place now. The tests are gonna be running for another hour or so, and Jerry got called in a while back, so I'll ask him to keep an eye out." He was curious to some degree, and he wanted to be sure Will didn't end up pushed into a corner.

"C'mon, then." Will gestured with his head, and turned towards the door.

"You're not letting Jack haul you in, are you?" Alan asked curiously.

"Me?" Greg looked at him. "No. I'm making sure Jack doesn't haul Will in, either. He got me the first day I was here. Dropped me in Will's office and left me alone until the curiosity was driving me nuts."

"I remember getting you drugs for the headache." Alan offered and that, that clicked just then for Greg, which said a lot about his headache. "After you searched Will's place."

"It worked out," Will suggested, "He doesn't have to wonder about the floor plan when he's over."

"Also, Mal doesn't try to eat me. He still tries to eat Jack, though. Thanks for the drugs. There were a couple of times I thought my brains were going to trickle out through my nose like somebody in the middle of an Egyptian mummification ritual."

"Not a problem." Alan smiled a little, while they started to move towards the door.

"You know Jack's the only person Mal does try to eat?" 

Greg laughed. "That's only because he hasn't spent any time with Gil yet." He really figured that dogs, pets in general, felt the stress their owners threw off. That was probably the real reason he tried to eat Jack. Meeting Gil a time or two wasn't enough time to register pissiness at him.

Yet.

He figured it would take time for Mal to get the association, because right now he was probably thinking of new parks and things. "Gil?" Alan asked, tilting his head a little.

"Dr. Grissom from over at GWU. I'm promising not to stalk him."

"He's the entomology expert from Las Vegas, isn't he?" Alan seemed interested, which was no surprise.

Greg nodded. "Yeah. He's a stickler for evidence versus psychic evidence, too. It's kind of a point but it limits your investigative possibilities." He wouldn't have been able to say that six months ago. Hell, he might not have been able to say it four months ago.

Now, though, he could. He had the confidence, even if Jack scared the shit out of him a little. "Conveniently, I do entomology as well, so we don't need to get him involved, squished beetle or not." 

"I sometimes think I miss the territorial pissing contests, and then I change my mind every time I experience one," Alan drawled, grinning at Greg. Yeah, he was missing a few pieces of the pissing contest aspect.

At least he could be sure that there wouldn't be any territorial pissing on him. Will wasn't into that kind of thing, and while Gil could be persuaded to try anything once, that wasn't the way to go about winning him back. There wasn't any way to do that, but point being, that was one guaranteed way to fuck things up. "I've never been much for that kind of thing."

"Professional, academic territory only," Will drawled, maybe promised. "I thought about it, and the guy did a lot of work that's derivative of my research. Improved on some of it, too."

"He's brilliant. Also kind of bad with people. Will's a lot better at that." And then some, actually.

Alan laughed, and Will smacked his shoulder, but Alan kept on laughing. "I have to meet this man, then." 

"Hey, you guys back already?" Jack called it down the hallway. "Made a few calls about your trucker theory."

"Yeah, and what'd you get?" Will was a little loud, but Jack was probably ignoring them anyway, so Greg was good with that.

"Probably that there are a lot of truckers in the world and they travel up and down the coast a hell of a lot."

"Got it in one, kid."

"Yeah, this is going to be a great case," Will drawled, waiting and letting Alan and Greg go into the room first.

A great case? Maybe. A pain in the ass? Definitely, because that was the way things generally went with Jack. Still. He'd kind of signed up for it, and he was definitely sticking around to be sure things went okay, so he slid into a free seat and settled in.

He had a feeling it would be a long day. And maybe even a long night.

~*~*~*~

He was not a great, introverted thinker.

He liked his life, and he liked not thinking about how much he liked his life because otherwise it might go away. That was an ever present concern for Will, even when he occasionally took stock of the state of the Graham. He was missing fingers now, for fuck's sake, and Jack just expected him to roll into a hot and heavy case like it was nothing for him when it felt a little shaky and traumatic, no matter how enjoyable his personal time with Greg was.

Going to a scene on his own, getting there separate of the buffer of Greg, had his nerves knotted up tight.

The thing of it was that learning to center himself, to hold his mind in and keep it where it belonged, it wasn't something he'd ever understood. He still didn't understand it, but Greg made it easy. He gave Will another mind to concentrate on, to hold onto so that it he didn't get lost in the people surrounding them.

The crime scene was a lot like the other one -- bite marks on the body, male, Caucasian, but not fresh. Not decomposing, either, because weirdly?

It was frozen.

That gave a little more credence to the trucker theory. A body could be kept frozen in a refrigerated truck for a long time if it wasn't inspected closely enough, Will figured.

The last one could have been frozen and defrosted, which made it harder to play timelines. He hadn't touched, but he was looking, taking in the dump site, tuning out the noise around him, and if anyone wanted his attention they could shout in his ear.

"I'm told there's a beetle. In the left ear."

That was a voice that didn't require any shouting. He knew it automatically, and it made his teeth clench.

Will inhaled, and leaned back from the body. "Grissom, great to have you here. Locals pulled you in again?" He wished they'd stop. He wished he could just run it down like one of his own.

Grissom shrugged, face blank. "They seem to think I'm a useful resource. Ordinarily, someone would just send me the beetle, but I was having dinner a few blocks away. The case made me curious, since there was a previous body in a similar state." He knelt down beside Will, far enough away that the urge to hit him was muted, but close enough to see what was going on.

Will reached for his tweezers from the kit, and an evidence jar. "Coroner has already called it, so I'll just get it for you."

"I appreciate that." Wryly spoken, and Will couldn't tell if he meant it or if he was just being some kind of jackass. The blatant brick wall was still there, and it disturbed him.

"I'm curious about how you managed to lock down your mind so well," Will drawled as he carefully leaned in to tweeze out the bug. "You might as well be a box of drywall to me."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Except he did, somewhere at the edges of it. Knew something that Will could feel, even if he couldn't really get anything else. "Interesting. I think that's Megacephala virginica."

"Uh-huh, 'cause I don't know what insects are," Will drawled, leaning back and reaching for his flashlight from his belt to double check it. "And missing two legs."

"I've never seen one of these in an ear before." Grissom pulled his glasses on, looking more closely. "They're biters, but the ear of a frozen corpse doesn't seem like the kind of place you'd find a Virginia tiger beetle, do you think?"

Making nice didn't make Will like him anymore.

"I see a lot of ritualistic placements of insects," Will drawled, placing the beetle carefully in the evidence jar, still holding it. He needed to get out a pen, and back in the day when he had all of his fingers, he could've juggled two or three things at once. These days, things didn't work quite the same way, and as often as not, it pissed him off.

Grissom had a look on his face, thoughtful and serious. "I mostly see insect activity with dead bodies. That's two beetles now, from fairly specific areas."

"Our man has a thing for beetles. It's no coincidence," Will agreed. They lost light while he set it down and got out the pen, balancing the light on his knee. Gil was watching him which was the annoying part.

When he spoke, it was slow, thoughtful. Will noticed that he'd waited until the detectives had stepped away. "It doesn't bother you, how similar we are in appearance?"

"Oh, I'm bothered," Will whispered, writing carefully on the jar. "I'm bothered by a lot of things that are generally more pressing in my day to day life than that."

"Hm." Grissom reached over, tilting his head to the side and shining his pen light into the ear. "I don't see the legs. Let's let the ME take the body and I'll look to see if they're stuck there." He stood up and started stripping off his gloves.

Will started to pack his stuff up, and gestured over to the ME. "Hey, Fred? We're done here, thanks. I'll catch up at the autopsy." 

Fred called for Andy to come over and help him move the body into the bag, and headed towards them. Grissom was lingering nearby, watching him, and it made Will hurry his fumbles a little more quickly, getting his crap together so that he could head back to Quantico and tell Jack where to stuff it.

On one hand, he needed to work fresh scenes, but not scenes that fresh. He just couldn't, and maybe falling back, losing his sharp snap, that was fine. He was tired and injured and half of him wanted to give up this shit, where the other half liked the intellectual activity of it. 

He was standing with his kit, and moved over to lurk by Grissom while they moved the body, in case there was anything under it. Another beetle or some piece of evidence that the killer might have left behind. Andy rolled out the body bag, unzipping it and splaying it open so that they could roll the body. Fred reached down, grabbed the guy's arm with his gloved hand and started to move him.

The concussion that went off threw Will away several feet, flinging him back into the street.

"Shit!" He felt like he'd been smeared across the road, and there was nothing to do but try to stand up, looking around him, hearing sirens and so many police were already there. His ears were ringing from the compression of the blast, and it took him a lot longer than he thought it should before he managed to get up.

Grissom was face down in the gutter, trying to push his way up from the position. He was bleeding -- face, arm, across his back. He wondered if he looked that bad, and then he looked for Fred and Andy.

It was immediately obvious that there was going to be no helping Fred. Most of his head wasn't exactly in the kind of shape that implied there would be any helping him.

He could see people starting to move towards them, but he was closer and he could see Andy lying near, and burning char that Will skirted to get to him. Pulse. He needed to kneel down and find a pulse, and then he could worry.

The first step was a stumble, whole body nearly tipping over with the motion. He got there before anybody else, though, and reached one shaking hand down to fumble at Andy's throat.

"Anything?" Grissom sounded hoarse, shaky, and too damn close. Obviously he'd managed to get up.

"No." He positioned himself over Andy, and started on chest compressions fast and targeted because what did breath matter if the heart wasn't beating to pump air?

"I'll, uh..." He wasn't paying attention to the guy, wasn't, so it surprised him when he tipped back Andy's head, leaned down as if to give him breaths. Will yelped at him then, and tried damn hard not to slap the shit out of him for not sweeping his mouth first. "Right. Right."

He watched him move Andy's tongue, so yeah, that was good. He wasn't sure what had happened -- didn't seem to be an obvious bleed out, and Will tried to focus while he compressed, hoping someone fresher and more coherent was there.

It was chaos left and right, yelling, sirens coming in from somewhere else, and there was a cop there the next time Will looked up, asking him to step aside so he could take over the compressions.

Good, great. Will waited until he was kneeling and then got up, moved out of the way as quickly as he could so the handoff went better. It wasn't graceful, and he stumbled again. Felt like he'd wrenched his knee in the blast, only it was a body not a damn blast zone.

Or it had been a body.

"Fuck." The body had been turned into shrapnel by the blast, frozen shards of human flesh scattered everywhere. Anybody else would probably puke. Will, though, Will could see the thought behind it, the way it would have occurred to somebody who thought the way their guy thought. There was probably already a hole in the sidewalk there, maybe deep enough, maybe not. He'd have worked it deeper, set it up as a compression blast, and...

"You're bleeding."

"Uh-huh." He pulled his eyes away from the blast zone, glancing over, deciding that maybe it was time to take an assessment of himself. Maybe, but he wasn't sure he wanted to.

"Here. I'm not usually very good with CPR, but I do better with bleeding injuries." Grissom seemed weirdly matter-of-fact about it, and how the hell he could hear anything when Will's ears were still ringing from the explosion? It was a curiosity, but not much more. He didn't have the energy for more than that, somehow, as if the blow had sapped all of it out of him.

"You kind of look like hell, too," Will pointed out, but Grissom was backing him up towards an ambulance, and Will's legs were mostly cooperating. To be as bad with bleeding injuries as he was with CPR, Grissom would've had to try slathering on antibacterial ointment with a rusty machete.

"I'm glad Greg wasn't here." That made two of them, although the non-sequitur made about as much sense as pissing into the wind. "This is going to be..." Difficult, to say the least.

"Used to cases going to hell." Hell, the good ones were the ones where everything was surface and research and he handed it off to someone else.

"Yeah, but not so used to bodies exploding. It hasn't happened to me lately." The paramedic was poking at him, asking both of them questions they were halfway ignoring. "I can call him for you. If you want."

"I'll get it when my head gets together. Might be other booby traps out here." Why the hell was Grissom so coherent after he'd been smeared over the pavement, and Will didn't feel a third that together? He squinted at the paramedic, trying to follow him.

"Look at the light for me." He did, following directions, ignoring Grissom standing there and half-watching the paramedic, half-watching the cops try to do something about the scene.

"i think I'll call him anyway. They'll need the extra hands."

"No. No, he's a DNA tech. DNA. He doesn't go to live scenes." Will snapped that, cut his eyes over, and heard the paramedic sigh.

Grissom looked at him. His eyes were a little dazed, nothing like what Will felt. "He's trained for live scenes. They'll need the hands."

"It's a goddamned FBI case. We have whole classes of students for that," Will snapped. "This isn't some resourceless backwater podunk, it's the goddamned beltway!"

"He's also one of the damned finest investigators I ever had. A body just exploded. We...."

"You should've told him that before you gave him whatever complex drove him out here. We investigate our way. I want to call Greg and go home."

"Yeah, you two aren't going anywhere." The paramedic was amused, smartassed, and that spread to Will a little, a tiny oasis in the panic. "This is why I don't work with my brother. We would've been rolling on the sidewalk kicking each other by now. Hold still, I want to get some of the shrapnel out. It's near your eye."

The idea of that left Will cranky, Grissom bemused. "We're not brothers. It looks... but we aren't."

"Yeah? Somebody's daddy got around." The paramedic shrugged, though, and Will just hissed while the man removed a chunk of he didn't know what. Could've been Fred's skull for all he knew. 

"Hey, can you save the bits you all pull out for evidence later? Someone's going to have to work out the blast documentation." Not him, because he was damn sure going home to Greg and his dog. No matter what Grissom thought about it.

He wasn't sure what they were going to do about the bits and pieces -- skulls, frozen flesh, pavement, Jesus, just thinking about it made his head throb worse than it already was. "I still think we should call him. At least to drive you home."

"I'm not sure you need to go anywhere just yet," the paramedic said. "Maybe in half an hour or so. Same for your friend here."

"But I'm fine," Grissom protested. "I should be gathering evidence...."

"Bleeding," The paramedic gestured, too, but Will didn't think it was going to work. 

He inhaled slowly, trying to focus, and he ended up in the paramedic's head, but that was better than the chaos. "I've got class in the morning."

"Well, you might be able to make it, but I'm pretty sure you'll still have a headache tomorrow. You must have really smacked your head when you hit the ground."

"Why?" The paramedic was actually, surface thoughts, pretty focused on the scene, trying to keep them calm and corralled, and he was thinking about what backup teams were coming, and how there was an ambulance on the other side of town just then with a lady with a stubbed toe whose house was on his personal crazy list.

The guy gave him a grin and reached for some supplies in his bag. "Because you've got a knot the size of a baseball coming up on the back of your head. You've got a friend coming from the sound of things, right?"

"Probably." He started to pat down his pockets to get his cell phone out. He'd call Greg before Grissom did. Before Grissom made it a case issue. "I'm calling."

Greg picked up before he even heard it ring. _"Will? Are you okay? There's been an explosion down near where you are, and it didn't ring through. I...."_

"Grissom and I were watching the M.E. turn the body over and everything went to hell." Will clutched the phone close to his head, and the paramedic seemed sympathetic, murmured something to Grissom. "Smacked my head on the ground, I'm okay other than some little dings."

"Don't forget the minor concussion," the paramedic added cheerfully. "Your friend gonna be willing to wake you up every few hours?"

_"What? Concussion, what? Will, what the hell. I'm never letting you out alone again."_

"I know. I manage to make it to the grocery store and back, but that's about it," Will drawled. "The paramedic's really chipper."

"Hey, I got to come out here. I could've been at the stubbed toe across town."

"Can I start working the scene?" Grissom seemed cranky, teeth a little on edge. "Or maybe you could get the bleeding stopped first?"

"No injured personnel are allowed to return to the scene." It sounded like the paramedic was repeating things he'd been told to say, right from the book.

"Fine." It was short, sharp, and honestly, Will didn't care, except... okay. The guy probably felt like shit. Hell, he did, and Greg was coming for him. That had to be better than going home alone. Still. Even feeling sorry for the guy, he wasn't about to make any offers. "Can I make a few calls?"

The paramedic shrugged. "Sure. But I want you to sit down for me. It's your turn."

Will scooted over in the open rear door, and crossed his arms over his chest. "So, uh. Thanks, Greg."

_"I'll be there in half an hour, okay?"_ He'd obviously been listening to what was going on. _"Um. Is Gil okay?"_

"He ended up smeared on the ground like I was. He's sitting here with me right now." Will glanced over, watched the paramedic wave a fresh set of tweezers. Grissom seemed to be taking it okay, all of the picking over, the way the guy dug into the wound on his arm to get out a shard that looked like bone.

_"All right. Okay. I'll be there. Half an hour."_

"Thanks." He hung up, and tipped his head back to stare up at the ceiling. The paramedic had Nirvana as an earworm. At least it wasn't anything worse.

"I'm fine. I don't see why I can't go back to working the scene." Grissom seemed mild about it now, but Will wondered if that would last for very long.

It was kind of crazy, but Will hadn't given in to one of those had to solve a case fits so badly since Josh. "Hey, I've got orders. You should go home. Get your brother's buddy to give you a ride home or something."

"Thanks." The sour purse of his mouth was undeniable, and Will got that. He really did, but sometimes a man had to step back and let somebody else do the work. "How much longer until I'm ready to go?"

"Oh, five minutes or so." The paramedic was looking over him, and Will disconnected, starting to look around again, seeing what there was to feel. What there was to hear, because his head was ringing as much from being too open as it was from having it slammed against the pavement.

Five minutes really meant five minutes to the paramedic's way of thinking, but the only place he wasn't getting anything for the entire length of the street was Grissom. He wished Greg was there, wished he had somebody to concentrate on, and when he found himself reaching up and clutching at his head, he also realized that Grissom was watching him.

"What's wrong?"

"Sometimes I don't, can't really shut my head down." And the paramedic, while interesting, was getting hard to focus on again. Shit.

The way that Grissom's head tilted was remarkably like a cocker spaniel waiting for a command. "Because you're telepathic."

"So're you." Like damn drywall, and Will leaned in, put his head down closer to between his knees.

"I don't know why you say that. I've never had so much as an inkling of another person's thoughts." He frowned. "You said you can't hear me."

"I can't. Never ran into someone naturally like that." He inhaled, sharp, trying to focus, trying to get himself together, and it didn't work. It didn't focus, didn't snap, and he was trying to get that snap but he needed a point, and most people didn't, sure, but he needed a point.

"So why don't you concentrate on that?"

"Doesn't work like that." He needed heads to focus on, minds to get into, thoughts to amuse himself with, and it was base and weird, yes, but that was how he worked. "It's the thoughts I focus on."

The scowl on Grissom's face was more thoughtful than anything else. "I don't know how to... stop. Being someone you can't hear." Kind of like Will didn't know how to stop hearing everyone.

Interesting.

"Yeah. I don't usually go deep out of politeness. Surface thoughts, and internal monologues. Dogs' thoughts." There was a bomb sweep group pulling into the parking lot, and that sent a frisson of low level panic through the place that was like a knife to the head that made it harder to pull into himself.

"Huh." The fact that Grissom was watching him, concentrating on him hard enough that it probably would have given Will a headache just to hear him listening that hard if it was actually working. "How do you get it to stop? Ever?"

"It doesn't." He lifted his head a little more, but he was probably at a weird angle, head tilted down still. "I work around it, use it every day."

Grissom leaned in close to him, and it made Will claustrophobic. "I don't understand why you think I'm telepathic. There's bound to be someone else out there you can't.... eavesdrop on?"

"Not really." Even Hannibal, but Hannibal's surface thoughts were so precise, so controlled and structured. He thought things at Will on purpose, talked to him with his thoughts, pure self control. But Will could still get in, and if he had delved deeper, sooner, well. Things would've been different. Would've been, but they weren't, and the sheer weight of thought bearing down on him was getting to be unbearable. Bomb guys, crime scene guys, some asshole saying something about a Marine lieutenant, and the whole thing made Will want to puke.

He hated this. Hated scenes, wanted his quiet and privacy back, not this sense that he had a damn wall sitting beside him, and the paramedic was roaming now, looking for other people while he and Grissom propped up the truck. Will was starting to feel the burn of scrapes from being thrown in the blast, but it wasn't sharp enough for him to really focus.

Greg would be there soon. He'd be there, and he could work his way into Greg's head, and that would be all it took.

And then there was an inkling.

It felt like a tickle, weird, made him want to take both palms and push at his temples to get to it, but it was there.

Fuck, that was annoying.

"Stop it." He snapped it a little lower than he meant to, looking over at Grissom. "Whatever you're doing over there, your bizarre blockades, just stop fussing with it. When you figure yourself out, I don't want to be around for it."

Grissom blinked, and that settled the weird itch in the center of his brain. "Right." Right, as if that was all, and they were just okay, not where they were, fucked up and in a mess.

Sitting there with a locked down telepath was interesting because when he went open the first time, the reverb was going to be fantastic, Will decided. Fantastic like a plane crash, and he wouldn't want to be in a one mile radius of that when it finally happened. 

"We need all personnel to evacuate, a suspicious device has been found." 

Suspicious, all right. Will knew without knowing exactly what was involved in the secondary device, a bigger one, and who the hell got off on biting somebody to death and blowing them up all at the same time?

"Let's go. I'm parked a block away."

"Sure." Will couldn't even quite remember where he'd parked, though he was sure he'd been in good working condition when he'd first arrived at the scene. He kept one hand clutched stubbornly to his cell phone while they moved.

The reverb in his head didn't get any better, no matter how far they got from the scene. The entire city seemed to be flooding towards the explosion, and what exactly did that say about the survival instincts of humans in general? Nothing good, he figured, and it only startled him a little when he felt Grissom's hand cup his elbow, keep him standing up straight.

"I'll call Greg. Tell him to meet us someplace quieter."

He offered Gil the cell phone, still moving with him, just wanting to get away from the noise, and with nothing to shut down to. Not even Jack's comforting, soothing dog chasing its own ass after a fart level of coherent thought.

The conversation was short, to the point, and he wondered where they were going. Anywhere but right there was the best answer, the one he wanted to hear, because his head was approaching migraine levels of pain. It was too much -- rescue personnel, news reports, idiotic curiosity seekers.

"Get in the car. There."

The door was open and so he stumbled into the seat, and dropped his head back against the headrest. It wasn't a relief so much that it was distance from the noise, the possibility of that distance. "'ll have to come back for my truck later."

The door shut behind him, and the driver's door took a while to open. Grissom was there, though, and then they were moving away, away, away, and god. It still wasn't enough, not really. He needed space and quiet and Greg so that he could bury himself in the core of his head and not have to hear everything else. "I'm sure someone from your office can come down. I don't think you should come back for... a while."

"Tomorrow." Will leaned in, put his head down as much as he could while they started to drive.

He didn't know how long they drove -- when they'd left, what time it was when Grissom put on the brakes, but he looked up when that happened, opened his eyes, and the sudden slam of quiet edged with deep worry was enough to make him drunk.

Greg. Greg and familiarity and there was a worried sort of waitress, and other people there, but he was familiar with Greg. It had bothered Molly when Will would use her as a focal point, but it worked. He started to fumble with his seatbelt, hand not quite ready to work with the pain in his head. It startled him when he felt Grissom's hand on the buckle.

"Here." The seatbelt released and Will managed to get it loose before he opened the door and tried to take his own head off with the thing because he couldn't get it open.

A case could go from too deep to too wide in no time. He hadn't been caught in the middle of a panicked scene like that in a long, long time, and he didn't want to be again for a damn long time to come. He could mostly walk in one straight line.

"My god, you look like hell. Let's... come in, let's get something to eat, some caffeine. Something. It'll help." Greg looked pale, and he knew it was because he looked like shit.

"The M.E. is dead. I could be worse." Will pulled away from Grissom, trying to stand up straighter.

"You could be dead, but right now you look like you've been run over by a truck. And Gil doesn't look much better, so.... both of you come in. Caffeine and sugar and..." Greg reached for him, and Will relaxed against his touch.

Grissom cleared his throat. "I should be getting back..."

"Shut up, come inside, sit down, and for once do something that's good for you without...." Greg clamped up, teeth grinding.

"Nothing to get back to. Bomb squad is looking for secondary, and the last thing they need is the local collegiate expert getting exploded. You're not active." He leaned into Greg a little, inhaling a little sharply.

"Back to my apartment. I have classes tomorrow." Gil was shifting back, trying to leave, and Greg was getting his back up.

"Fine. Whatever. But you're eating first. We're all eating." And that demand, it wasn't because he was hungry or because he thought they were hungry. It was because he'd been worried and he didn't know what else to do.

Will was willing to eat. He liked pancakes and hash browns, and sometimes bacon if he wasn't feeling hinky. Sweet and crispy, and maybe it was Greg who liked sweet and crispy, but it didn't matter. He had something to focus on. 

The sheer pissiness Greg exhibited seemed to prompt Grissom into moving towards the front door, thank God. He held it open while Greg pulled Will through it and to the nearest booth, following them inside.

"All right. If it makes you happy."

Will could feel the waitress's attention snap in on them, but he was trying hard to focus only on Greg. He sat beside him, and just pointed to what he'd roughly like on the menu. That was the benefit of picture menus. He didn't have to look up or pay attention, just listen to Greg order and then drink the coffee when it came for all of them.

The silence was strange, deep, and he lapsed further into it, ignoring everything else.

"Have you ever seen him do this before?" Gil sounded interested, and Will didn't like that. Didn't like being a curiosity when Gil was one, too. He just didn't know it yet.

"No. But I've never seen him at the epicenter of an explosion, either."

"Just rattled me. When they found the secondary and everyone panicked..." It was so quiet here, wonderfully so. Just low murmurs of normal thought, bearable, and he could come up if he wanted. It was a little funny that an explosion caused the same kind of flare-up of mental activity, made it impossible to shut down his head. Funny weird, but he accepted his own oddities, and that made it easier to bring his head out of the space where it couldn't shut down.

Greg reached past him for the sugar and snorted. "I'd have panicked."

"You have reason to panic." Gil -- Grissom, because he was getting Gil from Greg, and Will didn't want to think of him that way, not really -- was earnest about that. "Greg, you can't expect to get over things that easily. Even the passage of time isn't going to change that kind of ingrained reaction. It's normal."

"I panic over weird shit," Will pointed out, a little haltingly. "I just always wonder why people run towards the danger, and not away from it."

"Curiosity." Greg and Gil said it simultaneously.

"Although I've gotta tell you, I've always kinda thought it was the height of stupidity," Greg added.

Will smirked a little, and finally moved his hand to pick up his coffee cup. "There were so many people who just... went that way. I don't think most of them should have."

"Most people aren't functioning fully when that kind of thing happens," Gil said. "They're reacting. And people don't always react in ways that are entirely rational."

"You kept wanting to go back to the scene," Will pointed out, taking a slow sip.

Greg muffled a snicker, one more in his mind than out of it, and reached for his own coffee cup. Grissom just looked at him from over the top of his lenses and frowned. "I'm a trained criminalist. That's different."

"And I'm... somehow not one also?" Will pressed a little, inhaling the heat from his coffee. It smelled better than it tasted.

"You were a little more rattled than I was."

The thud of Greg's coffee cup nearly made the hot liquid slosh out. "Everybody is more rattled than you when these things happen."

Which felt like a point of contention between them, but Will wasn't so deep in Greg's head that he could feel childhood memories anymore, and was just catching skims off of everyone in the Waffle House. It felt better than it had out there, and he was mostly centered on Greg.

"I... just don't rattle."

"Your CPR leaves something to be desired."

At least he could break that up before it started, mostly, because Greg seemed to pull himself back from whatever edge he'd been approaching. "I think the guy who gave us CPR class in Vegas had a degree in theater or something."

"Was there a lot of practice on yelling, _'Annie, Annie, Annie, are you okay'_? Or was I the only one re-certified by a Michael Jackson fan?" The waitress broke in, and slipped plates in front of them.

It was obvious Greg had dated both of them. Neither complained about their order, just reached for their forks and dug in. Will had eggs over easy, bacon, grits and hash browns. Gil had something that seemed to be mostly good for the body -- wheat toast, fruit, eggs scrambled, looking like it was mostly whites. He reached for the salt and freely sprinkled it over the grits. For some reason, restaurants never salted the damn things. It was a cardinal sin.

"Yeah," Greg agreed, mouth full of eggs. The waitress came back and deposited waffles on the table. "'ccept we had Mandy. And Andy. It was kinda warped."

"Complicated scenarios involving their group injuries in a car wreck after a party?" Gil was giving Will a dirty look while he suggested that and Will just didn't care, started to eat his grits first. Bacon seemed okay this time. "If only they hadn't been fighting, we wouldn't have been trying to revive Annie."

Greg snorted, reaching for the bottle of syrup. "More like if they hadn't been drinking, we wouldn't have been trying to revive her."

Will laughed a little, chewing. "Yeah. I think that just answers the question about CPR instructors needing to entertain themselves." 

He felt better, things slotting into place now. He could sit there, watch Gil eat his mostly good-for-him breakfast, and be glad he'd grown up in the deep South, where nothing took precedence over grits and fried eggs when it came to breakfast.

The silence stretched out, all of them eating as if it was vitally important instead of a way to avoid the awkwardness that seemed to have made its way into the conversation. Hell. He'd never sat down to eat with Molly and John, so for all he knew, this was pretty much standard for what was a pretty bizarre situation.

Will ate a little more, and then sat back, fingers curled around his coffee mug. "Thanks, Greg. I think I'm starting to feel human again."

"Knew you would. I'm not sure there's anything you think can't be fixed with grits and eggs." Which was kind of right, considering. Grits and eggs made him feel better. Hell, sometimes he even made them for supper, just because it was a good way to end a bad day.

Easy low effort comfort food. Gil was looking at him, thoughtfully, and Will leaned into Greg. "Well, there are things I could try, but I've been told it wouldn't work for."

"So long as it makes you feel better, I'll take it. Pretty much any day." Greg popped a bite of waffle in his mouth and chewed.

"Mmm." He took a slow sip off of the kind of burnt tasting coffee, and sighed. "You should get home, Grissom. Start unraveling the shields in your mind."

Gil's jaw clenched. "You keep saying I'm a telepath. I think you're wrong about that. But I'm done here." Even though his toast and fruit wasn't eaten entirely yet.

"Gil...." Greg licked his lips. "Are you sure you're gonna be okay?"

"You caught the edge of the thread with your mind today, and I felt that. And you felt it, too. You're going to pull it loose sometime." Will leaned back in the booth a little, watching him. Even when he said it, he felt that sensation, that hint at a hideous reverb that made him flinch.

Gil flinched, too. "I, uh. Yes."

Yes, and Greg's face was wiped blank, straight and serious. He didn't say anything, but Will knew he didn't like this. Didn't like the idea of it, but he wasn't going to say anything about it.

Will wasn't really expecting the next sensation, a slip, nervous pulling, but he started to stand up, a little jolted, and waved at the waitress to get the check. "Not here. You do this with me here, and it's going to be bad."

"You do this in a public place and I think it'll be bad," Greg agreed, and yeah. Maybe he should have looked around, because half the people there looked shaky, off-key somehow.

"I..." Gil grimaced. "I don't..."

"How can you get through your whole life and not know you're a mind reader?" Will muttered it more than he was asking, leaning across the table towards Gil. His tie was probably in the grits, but after the explosion, the tie was a loss anyway. He put a hand on his temple, swallowed, and then forced it out -- everything he knew about self control, about coping, about how to cope, he shoved at that unraveling thread, past Gil's barrier's until he was sure he'd ruptured something in his own head.

A sharp gasp echoed across both sides of the table, and then Greg was scrabbling up, up and heading for the bathroom at a sharp pace, and Gil was behind him, and Will had a headache with a vicious echo going on, like the reverb off of back-alley walls when a bullet ricocheted down them.

Jesus.

"Are they okay?" The waitress was staring hard, and Will started to ease himself back into his seat, reaching for his wallet. 

"Yeah, uh, it's just... been a long day."

She looked at him, good and hard. "Honey, I could tell that when you walked in."

That had to be kind of obvious, so he tossed a twenty and a five on the table and headed after them.

It wasn't hard to figure out why Greg had been moving so fast. The weird echo had to have affected him, probably because he was pressed arm to arm with Will, and dammit, he should have thought about that. He'd been in Greg's head, and he already knew that sometimes he got a little too deep.

There was no way of knowing what Greg had picked up, and Will didn't usually force things back. It wasn't in his comfortable bag of tricks, but he knew how to do it. 

"Greg?"

Definitely in the handicapped stall, because Will could hear him panting a little, obviously recovering. Gil was standing in a corner, sheet white and shaking. Obviously it hadn't been his best idea ever.

"'m okay. Just. 'm okay."

He'd always sort of played fast and loose, so he wasn't sure how much he'd shared or even what it felt like to be on the receiving end. He lurked outside the stall door. "Do you want me to stay out here?"

"Yeah." Yeah, and Gil shook his head miserably, and looked at Will like he couldn't decide whether to hit him or ask to go home with them.

"Next time, could you... try not to put me into anyone else's head?" As if it was an established fact that there would be a next time.

Will leaned against the side of the stall, leaning his head against it. "I'm sorry. This is why I don't try new tricks often. I was trying to show Grissom how to get hold of himself." Grissom, who looked shell-shocked. Maybe he could even hear Will thinking about how shell-shocked he was.

"I think I should leave," he said slowly, as if it took an effort to speak out loud. Maybe it did.

The toilet flushed and Greg walked out. His eyes were a little wild and he was sniffing, cheap tissue clutched in one hand. "I think we should all leave. And I think somebody needs to call Alan."

"I'll uh, stand outside and call Alan." Now that he wasn't the only person who felt like shit, Will sort of could carry on, stumble on, get himself moving. He pawed for his cell phone, and started towards the door, dialing Alan. By the time they made it home, he'd have Alan on the way, or at least have him ready to call in the kind of drugs that would settle this down before it got any weirder than it already was.

Grissom was probably going to need Alan more than he did, and Greg, Greg could use his stuff and if Will was the best one for driving home, they were screwed. His arm was killing him, his head was throbbing, but at least he'd eaten. He heard Alan mumble something that was maybe hello. "Alan? 's Will."

_"What's the emergency?"_

It made Will's mouth quirk upwards. "What makes you think it's an emergency?"

_"If you or Jack call me, it's always an emergency."_ He seemed amused about it, though. _"But that's all right. What do you need?"_

"You know the local from the college who's in on the case and pissing my ass off? He unraveled the thread of his mental blockade. Well, he was pulling at it, and I got into his head and tried to show him how to control himself, and I was touching Greg and set him off."

_"One day, there will be a study that properly explains all of this so that I can do more than prescribe things after the fact,"_ Alan declared thoughtfully. _"Should I come to your place?"_

"We're at a Waffle House right now, but I think so. I'm probably going to end up driving everyone there. We've got a trail of cars all over the city." And hell. That meant Greg's little VW and Grissom's car.

The bathroom door opened and they both came out, Greg still sniffing a little, rubbing tissue at his nose. It was bleeding a bit. "Hey. Wasn't expecting that. Sorry."

_"I can send someone to fetch you if you need someone."_

Huh

"I can drive, it's good. I'll see you soon, Alan." He hung up, inhaling hard and trying to center himself on Greg again. "I've paid if you guys want to go."

Greg nodded. "Yeah. Just lemme grab a couple of napkins. I... I think Gil should come with us. I'll drive. You don't look so good, either."

"I can drive." Squishing himself down into Greg's car was probably the better call because Greg's was the most steal-able out of all of them.

"You can't drive, your ears are still ringing, and if the feel of my head is anything to go by, yours isn't up to it. I'll drive," Greg insisted, and Grissom didn't insist that he wanted to drive. Hell. Will could still feel him trailing bits and pieces of himself around.

Greg knew Will had no limits. Knew Will didn't say no to anything. "Alan's going to meet us at my place." 

"That sounds like a plan." More than a plan, because Greg was hoping that Alan would be bringing the good stuff. He probably needed it, considering. "Gil. Just... sit in the back and try to keep your head in one place. Also, I am never, ever letting you live any of this down. Ever."

"Yeah. I, uh..." Not coherent. Not at all. Will wasn't particularly inclined to reach out for Grissom, didn't want to get his head caught into that just then.

"You're going to get in my car, and we're going to Will's, and you can... Alan will do something, and I'm passing out in the bed with the dog." Greg dug into his pocket for his keys, sniffing again.

"Dogs have the best thoughts." Will mostly told that to Grissom over his shoulder, moving to open the door for Greg so they could get out. Get out and go and he didn't know what they'd do when they got home, but they'd work it out when they got there.

~*~*~*~

His head was killing him.

The last time he'd gotten audio feedback bad enough to make him want to run screaming had been when his best friend in high school had decided that starting a band would be wicked fun. Whatever Will had done was a lot like that, only entirely in his head. He hadn't even had a hand on both of them, but he'd had them in his head, Will mirroring Gil mirroring Will, and both of them concentrated on nothing but him.

Greg really hoped Alan showed up soon.

Intellectually, he got that Will grounded himself on him. That was fine, he understood it. Will spent a lot of time using Greg's head as a security blanket. Will swore it was never deep thought, and Greg believed him. That was one of the basic tenets of their relationship -- if he didn't accept it, then they couldn't have one.

Mal leaned up and licked Greg's hand, trying to shift his arm from its position over his eyes. "Yeah, boy. I know. But Dr. Bloom's gonna be here in a while and then I will feel good enough to offer you exactly what you want. Until then, it's you and me...." And his boyfriend, and his ex-boyfriend, and Greg was grateful, so very incredibly grateful, that he wasn't a mind-reader.

He wasn't sure what Will was thinking, but Gil was probably seething. Probably. Will was sacked out beside him on the bed, still dressed in charred up clothes, and just tired. He'd mumbled something about maybe changing.

He needed to urge Gil, Will, hell, both of them, to get up, to get a shower, to... to do something, but his head hurt too much, and he couldn't get the energy together to do anything about it. Hell, he wasn't sure he'd manage to get up and answer the door when Alan showed up.

Gil was passed out on Will's sofa, which had been Will's only concession to territorial pissing. He wasn't feeling threatened by Grissom.

"You okay?"

"I'll live," Greg replied, thinking about taking his arm off of his eyes. "You?"

"Thinking about a shower. Pretty glad to be home." If they'd been alone, Will would've dragged Greg into the shower with him.

He thought about it good and hard. "You sound altogether too pleased with yourself," he decided finally. "Especially considering how bad I know you feel." 

There was a hesitation -- where Gil would've then denied any such thing, Will was looking for phrases. "Now there's no one I can't read." It wasn't a particularly malicious sentiment, but it was a tiny bit smug, like someone who had an all access pass to every university library in the world. "Even if it makes me want to pull my head off, I could read him now." 

Yeah. It didn't take much to make Will happy. Still. "It's probably best if you don't, much." Best for him and Will, best for Gil. Greg never wanted to know what was in Gil's head. He dealt with his own, and that was plenty. In all honesty, it was no wonder most telepaths ended their own lives before they reached thirty if anybody thought much about it.

"I won't. But when it was all walls, I had to. It's like putting a wrapped present in front of a three year old. Now that he's no longer a mystery, I don't want to." Will took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. "I'm going to give Mal his treats and then run some water. The case is going to kick into high gear tomorrow, after what happened."

"That sounds like a plan." And then some. A bath might feel good, if he could get out of the bed, but it was probably better to lie there and hope that his head stopped throbbing in time with his heartbeat. "Gil probably needs one, too."

"'s a guest bath." Will leaned up onto his side, and sucked in a sharp breath. "I think I still have shrapnel in my arm. Jesus. Human shrapnel."

The thought of all the possible repercussions of that made Greg queasy, and he decided not to think about it. "I'll get up. Tell him. You have an old shirt you'd like to give to a good cause?"

"Yeah. Never thought I'd play nice with the guy, but." Will levered himself up, got himself standing, and shook himself off a little. "Yeah, I'm thinking blood tests and everything else tomorrow. Anti-retrovirals?"

"Maybe you should go ahead and call Alan before he gets here. Once the headache's gone, I'll go pick them up from the drug store." Or something, anyway. Obviously this was going to be a night for pizza or Chinese or pretty much anything that meant they didn't have to cook.

He wondered vaguely if Will had fresh milk. He probably did. Will kept good food in, and he had his food habits. "Call him for what?"

"So he can go ahead and call in the anti-retrovirals or something." Something, because it wasn't like any of them were functioning on full cylinders.

"Yeah. I'll do that." Will pawed for his cell phone, still in his pocket, and lurched stiffly towards the hallway.

Greg tried like hell to keep lying there, but he couldn't stop worrying that Gil might decide to kill Will when he wasn't looking and bury the body somewhere. He could probably get away with it without even leaving any clues, so he dragged himself out of the bed and stumbled towards the kitchen. He wanted some milk anyway.

Will was standing in the kitchen with a bag of dog treats, looking a little dazed, but he could hear running water from the guest bathroom.

"Good to see he didn't kill you," Greg offered, digging into the fridge for the milk carton. "I decided I should get up and check, just in case."

"He's showering. Mal?" He leaned up a little, straightened himself out and rattled the bag. "Yeah, someone's feeling spoiled."

Mal panted with greed and reached up his muzzle in search of his treat. He didn't bother to waddle any closer to Will because he knew Will would bring it to him if he waited long enough. "Somebody else needs to get a shower," he said, putting the milk on the counter and stepping closer to Will. "You stink."

"Yeah. Char and explosives and dirt and blood." Will got a couple of them onto his hand, and wandered in closer to lazy, lazy Mal to give him treats. "I called Alan."

"Good." He reached into the cabinet and pulled out a glass, pouring milk into it. "I... You're taking this pretty well."

"Which part?" Will slipped Mal his treats, and put the bag back on the countertop.

"I don't know. Being blown up while looking at a dead body, it tends to rattle people. I'm glad you're not all to pieces, just..."

"I haven't had time to process it all. The M.E.'s dead. That's..." Will shook his head a little. "We were resuscitating his assistant when someone else took over."

Greg licked his lips, picked up his glass and took a swallow. "You wanna talk about it?"

"This is why I hate working cases. I miss my classrooms." Classrooms didn't explode and possibly stick you with maybe AIDS laden bone shards and shit. There was just no telling.

"I miss your classrooms, too. It's harder to tell Crawford to go fuck himself than it should be." And then some, because it wasn't like Greg was managing it any better than Will.

"Yeah. He's good at what he does." Will leaned back against the counter. "So. I'll be showering. Might even look human by the time I'm done."

Hopefully he'd feel human, too, and Greg gave him a lopsided smile. "I'll go sack out on the couch for a while so I can hear Alan when he gets here." Hopefully he'd have all of the good drugs, too.

"Cool." Will waved to him faintly, wandering back to the bedroom while taking his shirt off. It gave Greg a little quiet space to consider just passing out on the sofa with Mal again. Gil would probably be coming out soon, and he didn't want to deal with that.

Whatever was going on with his head, Greg didn't feel up to dealing with it. When he'd left Vegas, he'd thought he wouldn't have to deal with Gil's bullshit again. Not with the weird semi-prejudice he had against Greg's talents, or any of the other things that hadn't upset him at the time but, in retrospect, kind of pissed him off. Now Gil was here, and driving him up a wall, getting into cases, and... there, with them just then. Even if he was in the shower. Greg sat on the sofa, and leaned his head back. Mal was moseying over. He probably needed a walk.

"Hey, boy. Hey, good Mal, yeah. You're a good boy." Greg's head hurt like hell, but he should probably get up and take him out anyway. "You gotta go potty, huh?"

There was a little hip wiggle and Mal sat up straight and licked his own nose. Yeah, that was it. Mal needed walkies and it might get him away from alone time with Grissom.

Greg fumbled through the drawer closest to the mud room and pulled out Mal's leash, leaning down to clip it to his collar. "C'mon, buddy. We'll go out for a while, huh?" He'd snag Will's sunglasses on the way out the door. They were darker than his.

Mal gave a whiny low bark, and Greg got the door open for him. He liked walks better than yard time, though there were times where Mal wanted to idle his ass down onto the grass in what passed for Will's lawn and bark at wildlife. He was pretty easy to please, all things considered. A squeaky toy and a rawhide made for a full day's entertainment.

They headed out of the house, Mal's lopsided walk heading hurriedly for the small green area at the end of the street where there were a fair number of trees and bushes that were entirely convenient for Mal's plans. They could walk a little further if they needed to in order to give Will time to get out of the shower. He just didn't want to handle Gil by himself. Even with Gil's head killing him, disoriented, whatever the hell was wrong with him, they'd probably still argue about a relationship that wasn't anymore.

For another ten minutes, Greg walked with Mal, followed him around as he sniffed at every bush and leaf available before deigning to squat and do his wicked deed. That was enough time for Will to get out of the shower, he figured, and he saw another car parked on the street outside the house, so there would be an even bigger barrier between him and Gil.

Thank God.

Satisfied that he was covered, he headed back, Mal slobbering on the leg of his pants as they went up the driveway and back in through the mudroom. He hoped he wouldn't find dead bodies. After all, they'd spent more time facing off against one another than not. Maybe he should have thought about it before leaving them in the house together. Alan was there, though, and Gil was sitting at the kitchen table while Will stood unsteadily nearby, picking at his arm.

"Seriously, if you keep doing that, it'll get infected." Greg took the leash off of Mal and let him waggle his way into the kitchen ahead of him.

"I would've been better off if we'd had an option to dive into a lawn of cacti." Will stopped, though, hand falling to his side before he crouched down. "Yeah, you had a good walk, huh?"

Yeah, and Mal was panting, shoving his face towards Will's, leaning up to lick every place he could reach. It was kind of disgusting considering what he knew Mal's breath smelled like.

Alan got up, holding out a packet of something. "Here. I'm sure your head's probably killing you. It seems to be going around." Alan was a god about drugs.

"It was like feedback," Gil murmured from the table. "It's..." He sounded strained, and Will jerked his head a little. 

"Hey, knock that off. Don't make me take you apart."

"And please god, nobody touch me if you're gonna do that again," Greg pleaded. Just thinking about it made him cringe, and he took the packet, heading for the kitchen and caffeine. Will always kept good coffee now, but he was pretty sure there was some Red Bull in there somewhere. It tasted like ass, but Will kept it around for a quick 'clean' boost that made Greg want to brush his teeth and scrape his tongue. 

There were cans in the back of the fridge, though, and the caffeine would get going a little faster, so he opened the can and wandered back to the dining room. "Yeah, well he's sitting over there taking baby steps with his head and it hurts to feel."

"I appreciate the comparison," Gil offered, a little sour. "I didn't know anything about this until you deigned to inform me it was there. I wish you hadn't."

Alan was watching them, and Greg already knew what that gleam in his eye was, exactly what it meant. It was the same look almost everyone got when they saw Will and Gil together. Funnily enough, he hadn't really registered their similar appearances that much until Gil showed up in Virginia. Somehow, he'd gone fuzzy in Greg's head over time, and Will had been sharp and present and... nothing like Gil. "It's curious to me, how differently you've both dealt with your talent. And, of course, how Greg has dealt with his."

"Greg was trained," Will pointed out, scruffing Mal's fur one last time before he stood up straight. "I was badly trained, but I like it. Grissom here--"

Gil cleared his throat, but his head was still hung down a little. "Grissom here didn't know anything about this." Grissom also didn't want to acknowledge that Greg had skills and that they were useful.

"Plus, my Isoäiti was teaching me about what I could do before I could do more than toddle. It's different. Will, nobody else in your family ever had any really prominent psychic traits, did they?" They didn't talk about families, much. They should. Poppa and Isoäiti would want to visit sometime soon. They were older, but they still liked to travel now and then. Besides, most of his family lived a lot closer to one another. Greg and his cousin Andy were the only ones who lived very far from the west coast. It was easier to visit Greg.

Nobody had to share their mattress with a sheep when they came to visit Greg.

"I'd be interested in talking with your.... Isoäiti, was it? She must have some interesting stories to tell."

"I bet she does." Will gave him a sideways look before he wandered towards the kitchen. "I just sort of figured it out myself until I was old enough to get officially tagged."

Greg tossed back two of the pills and followed Will, wondering if there was anything that could possibly improve the taste. He didn't bother searching for anything, just swallowed and grimaced. "And that is why I'm glad that Isoäiti had some idea of what to tell me."

"Yeah. I'm glad you had her, too. If Jack had his pick of you or me..." Will rolled his shoulders, and leaned past Greg to grab himself a can of the nasty stuff. "Well, you're better than I am on control."

Licking his lips, Greg lowered his voice. "And I can teach it. If I have to." He didn't want to. He couldn't imagine what kind of hellaciously difficult fight that would be, and he didn't want to deal with Gil on a daily basis. He could if he had to; he just never wanted to do that.

"I think Grissom might be better served with formal teaching," Will murmured, leaning in close to Greg so no one else could hear him.

"Oh, thank God." Thank God, because he didn't think he could face it if he had to start spending a lot of time with Gil. It wasn't that they didn't get along, even now. Not exactly. It was that Gil wanted things from him that he couldn't give anymore, and he didn't know how to deal with that.

Will's voice remained quiet, too low for Alan or Gil to hear him. "I think I pushed enough of what I know about control into his head that he can cope long enough to get formal training." _That_ was what Will had done? Pushed thoughts out, which, okay, Greg had thought the backlash feeling had been just from them connecting, like a microphone crossing with another one. Pushing thoughts out, though. That was something, the kind of thing that people whispered about, soft, hidden rumors, bad things about people like them. Greg had always thought that it was mostly the talk of people who liked to wear tinfoil hats, but this...

"Don't ever tell anyone else you can do that. Not... I just..." He leaned in, and kissed Will, quick and light, and maybe a little scared, too. "Just. Don't."

The bright side of dating a mind reader was that Will caught it and nodded, waving his Red Bull can a little. "Don't worry. C'mon, let's see how Alan's doing."

Greg nodded, and took another deep swallow, trying to push the headache down with caffeine and the pills from Alan. "Think I should make coffee?"

"I don't know. We might head out again. Drop people off to their cars. Or tomorrow." Will looked tired, and when he started to lean on all the furniture, it was mostly to keep himself upright.

"Go lie down before you fall down," Greg advised him, swallowing again. "I'll check on things, try and get Alan to take Gil to his car."

"My truck's probably blown up by now." Will tilted his head down. "I'm going to pass out on the sofa and maybe intimidate him in my sleep."

Leaning in, he gave Will one more quick kiss. "Okay. I'll nudge you if it's necessary, all right?"

"Yeah." Will still downed the rest of the Red Bull, but Greg didn't think it was going to do anything to keep him awake. He led the way back out of the kitchen, towards Alan and the living room-cum-dining room.

Gil was talking to him, their discussions low and serious. Alan seemed very interested in whatever they were talking about, so Greg moved in quietly and sat down nearby while Will went to settle down on the couch.

"So you've never had any inkling that you had this ability before now? That's very unusual. Most of the time, psychic abilities are more or less genetic in nature."

"They're definitely genetic," Will offered from the sofa. "Ooof, hey there, Mal."

Gil craned his head, looking over at Will. "I was unaware."

It probably wasn't any of his business, but Greg spoke up, anyway. "I don't think Gil's dad was a big part of his life. Didn't your mom leave him when you were six? If it was from his side of the family, maybe that's why you didn't know."

Gil hung his head down, grimacing a little. "While that's a possibility, I uh..." No ability to concentrate. None. Greg couldn't blame him. He had a feeling that it would take him a while to be able to do that.

"Don't know," Alan offered, contemplating the matter seriously. "There's nothing wrong with not knowing. How are you feeling, by the way? Is the medication helping?"

"Drugged. What was it?" That Gil was taking drugs without asking too deeply was interesting and scattered of him.

"A cousin of Clonazepam. I didn't want to try any of the older drugs that have been advised for psychics over the years. A lot of them cause more harm than they do good. You might feel very drowsy soon," Alan advised. "But it helps to keep the feeling of other minds from becoming overwhelming."

"Does Graham use a lot of drugs?" Gil rubbed at his temple. "To handle this? Greg, do you?"

He tried not to hear any kind of accusation in that question. It wasn't easy, but he tried. "No. My Isoäiti had the gift. I told you that, once." A long time ago. "When she realized, she bought my first pair of gloves. They'd stopped branding psychics then, so it was safe. Well. Mostly safe. Poppa wasn't happy about it. He wanted to try and do it without the gloves. Didn't want even that to keep me separated from other people." Normal people. "But she said.... until I got old enough to know how to protect myself from it, that was her job. So no. I never needed any kind of drugs for that, much."

"Huh." It was Gil, but he was pretty sure Alan was thinking the same thing. Gil probably had the mental image of Will passed out on the floor all the time, drugged out of his mind, but Will didn't live that kind of life. He handled it pretty well, all things considered.

"Will handles things differently," Alan offered. "Everybody knows psychics were taught in segregated schools until the mid-seventies. They were often substandard, and the techniques taught for controlling their talents weren't what anyone would call good. Most psychics of Will's caliber committed suicide in their mid-twenties -- more often from a gunshot to the temple than accidental overdose. Will has been involved in criminal forensics since he was that age."

"I'm very against shooting myself in the head." Will waved a hand from the edge of the sofa. "The drugs aren't bad if you use them when you need them."

"Which would be any time you end up on Crawford's leash." Greg nodded. "Alan's pretty great about coming up with the right drugs when you've been following along behind him a little too closely. Crawford's enough to make me want drugs even when I haven't spent too much time gloveless at a crime scene."

"I..." Alan cleared his throat. "That's very true. Hands on and high stress. Explosions included."

Greg shrugged. "Point being... no. We don't use a lot of drugs to handle our talents. The drug-use rates for psychics are a little higher than average, but it's not the favorite way for anybody with any brains. Does that answer your question?" If he was a little confrontational, nobody could blame him.

He'd had years of Grissom pulling faces at him about his abilities, making him feel shamed and encouraging him not to use it. "Yes." Grissom still didn't sound happy, but he at least sounded a little dazed. The drugs were kicking in. "I have no idea how this is working. How..."

Alan was gentler than Greg could be. "No one really knows. We're sure it's genetic, but beyond that, they haven't isolated the gene that's responsible for triggering psychic abilities. There's bound to be a different gene for each kind of talent -- they all behave differently. It's just more difficult than you'd think to isolate that kind of thing. I'm sure Greg could probably tell you more about it than I can."

"I could, but I think maybe we should get Gil lying down flat." Before he passed out, since he obviously wasn't dealing so well with whatever Alan gave him.

"So much for getting him out of here tonight," Will groaned from the sofa, sitting up again. "Guest room."

Greg made his way around the table and reached out, taking Gil's arm. "C'mon. Before you pass out and I have to try to carry you."

"This is all very..." Gil got to his feet, and Alan stood up, stopping by the sofa to push Will back down.

"Hold on, I'll help."

He tossed Alan a smile. "Thanks." Thanks, because Alan was pretty much a great guy. Will said he wanted to understand the way they worked, the way Will thought, but that he wasn't pushy about it. That pretty much said it all. "Come on, Gil."

"I'm sorry." He sounded tight and tired, but sleep might help.

Alan took the arm on the other side of him, got him to move towards the guest room, and Greg was pretty happy to dump Gil there to sack out. Still, he figured he ought to offer before he took off to hide with Will. "Do you need anything before I leave?"

"No. Just... a ride in the morning." That was probably going to be easy. They'd have to car ferry, and hopefully Will's wasn't blown up. He wasn't even sure insurance covered that kind of thing.

How many people ever had their car literally blow up in the states, anyway?

"I'll stay over instead of heading back to my apartment so if you need anything... just come looking." He probably wouldn't, but who knew? Gil might, just out of perverse curiosity.

Greg slipped out of the guest room, shutting the door behind him. Gil had always wanted to sleep with the door shut, and he figured being in someone else's house would just make that desire stronger.

"I can connect him to the people who are best suited to help him," Alan offered, walking backwards down the hallway and into the kitchen so he could face Greg while he made the offer. "And, if there isn't anything else needed, I'll also get out of your hair for the moment and go."

"You should at least let me make you some coffee." Or something, anyway. "I mean, you came all this way, and I really appreciate it." Hell. Will did, too, he was sure, and Gil might not yet, but he'd probably appreciate it tomorrow.

Alan's mouth quirked a little. "I'll return Will's travel mug if you'll pour me a cup for the road. Make sure he takes those antibiotics. The last thing he needs is blood poisoning from the road rash on his arm. And the anti-retrovirals. The instructions are on the packages. There's another set to send home with Gil."

Yeah. Alan was pretty awesome. He was definitely worth the effort Greg put into making coffee while they talked. "I'll badger both of them into making sure that they take all of the stuff you've brought over for them. Well. I won't have to badger Will much. Gil.... I'm not sure."

"Remind him that the anti-retrovirals are science," Alan drawled. "And Will's still awake, I think."

Yeah. That'd give them time to talk about some things, maybe ask a few questions. Greg was starting to suspect a few things, and he was hoping like hell they weren't true. Will didn't know the answers, and he was pretty sure that Gil didn't want to know them. "He's probably afraid he'll miss something."

"Mal's got a foot wedged in my crotch 'n he thinks its comfy." Will was still lying down in the living room, but he sounded groggy when he called out to them. Alan tipped an eyebrow as if to say _See?_.

"You should probably get some rest yourself," Alan suggested gently. "I'll pass on what you were caught up in once I get to the office tomorrow."

"I'm just surprised Crawford isn't here already." He reached out and gently rapped on Will's table, just in case, then dug into the cabinet where Will kept his coffee mugs and pulled out a travel mug. "Cream and sugar?"

"Please. Crawford is probably at the scene itself, and hopefully knows enough not to show up unannounced when people are injured."

It seemed like that would guarantee a knock on the door, but one didn't come, so Greg handed over the coffee and shrugged. "We can just keep hoping. Thanks for coming. I know Will appreciates it, and me, too. Gil... well. He'll learn to if he doesn't already."

"Yeah." He smiled tightly, and nodded a thank you for the mug. "Get some sleep."

"I don't think you'll have to worry about that." His head was still throbbing, so Greg had plans to curl up in Will's bed, hopefully with Will and Mal, and sleep off the headache. "Have a safe trip back."

"Thanks." Alan gave a last wave, moving slowly, and he moved to let himself out.

Pushing away from the counter, Greg walked into the living room. Will was still stretched out, one arm over his eyes. "You awake?"

He moved his arm, eyes squinting up at Greg. He'd gotten Mal to move his leg. "Mmm, mostly."

"Wanna go curl up in the bedroom? It's darker in there." It would make him feel better and it would damn sure be more comfortable. "We'll worry about the other meds whenever we get up."

"Uhm-hm. I think Alan gave me a first dose of everything." Will started to sit up, hugging Mal and shifting him gently onto the floor. He went reluctantly and grunted at Will when he was down, turning to give him a dirty look.

Greg reached down and ruffled his ears lightly. "C'mon, buddy. Let's go take a nap, huh?"

"In bed. The place for the long naps," Will explained, a little groggy sounding as he got to his feet. "Hell of a night."

Hell of a week to Greg's way of thinking, but he offered Will a hand. "Yeah. C'mon. We'll face tomorrow when it gets here."

"Sore 'n exploded." But they were going to be in bed soon, warm and comfortable, and Mal would be there at the foot of it.

"If tomorrow's any better, I'll rub out some of the knots," he promised, and gently pushed Will along. "Before Crawford comes and frog-marches me into the office."

Yeah. That time would come, but for now, they'd get some rest. Tomorrow was bound to look better.

~*~*~*~

His life story was a series of strategic pauses to collect his shit. To get himself straightened out, coasting high from one small disaster to another under, riding those peaks and then falling down again in the spaces between. It was the spaces between that he'd carefully structured a way of living for -- he had Mal and his relative sense of routine and Greg. Greg, the unexpected highlight after Harrisburg, after missing fingers and a peak too high and too low all at once.

Will wasn't terribly surprised that he'd done what he'd done. He hadn't meant to, to knock Grissom's head wide open, but it had felt glorious, powerful. It made him wonder what else he could do. As long as no one tempted him and made him want it, there was a lot he could do.

He wondered if that was why Hannibal had come back to the states to polish off Kolya, knowing that the real damage had already been done decades before. Still, Will nudged the edge of the guest bed with his knee, and watched with a dispassionate air about him as Grissom rolled onto his side.

"I brought coffee."

The vague blink of one bloodshot eye wasn't much of an answer. It seemed to take Grissom a while to open the other. "And you haven't poisoned it?" Not that surprising a question considering what Will had done.

"I'd rather not have you die on the premises. I dislike being investigated." He cocked an eyebrow at Grissom, holding the cup out as the peace offering it clearly was. "Seriously, you'll feel better with breakfast in you."

The echo of all the things Will could hear was strange, a psychic bounce between their minds. "It's like a migraine," Grissom mumbled. "Loud and it seems.... unstoppable."

"You can close it down. You just need to concentrate on not listening to everything." Unless you were Will. Will watched Grissom take the cup, and didn't push too hard at Grissom, just bore through the echo. "You can sort out the noise."

The sour expression was enjoyable enough. "You don't seem to have a very good grasp on that aspect of things." Still, he seemed grateful for the coffee, hand curved around the cup as he sipped slowly. The nice thing about being a reader was that Will almost always knew how everyone took their coffee.

It saved him a lot of time asking the question.

"No, I don't. I'm wide open all the time. It has its uses. Never really learned control, and then Hannibal gave it a few cracks." Grissom knew that, because he'd shoved that at him, too, with everything he knew about how control should work. About what he'd seen in other people's heads.

About what had never worked for him.

That thought made him rub his forehead. It was amusing to realize that they were both doing so, and then Grissom stopped self-consciously. "I'm going to assume that there must be some sort of professional teaching available."

"Oh yes, there are professionals. I suggest you look into it." Will took a step backwards, turning towards the door. "Now come and have breakfast. We're going to retrieve cars and head in to the office. They'll want to get a witness statement from you." Because that was where he was good, where he was useful. That was where his life just slotted together.

He was on a cresting wave, and everything was perfect until it broke and he was expected to be normal every-day Will. That was where everything went straight to hell somehow.

"I'll get dressed." He was looking around as if he had no idea what he'd be wearing, and that much was probably true. Neither he nor Greg had been all that together first thing this morning, much less last night. He had been surprised to find his clothes in a scattered trail mingled with Greg's that led from the dining room to the bedroom somehow. Grissom's had been in a pile just inside the guest room, and Greg had found them and put them on to wash with all of theirs.

"They're in the drier. Ish." Will turned to shut the door behind him, to give the man his physical privacy even as he could still feel echoes of his mind. "Just rifle the drawers."

He got a discontented hum of sound before the latch clicked and then he left behind that strange, headachy reverberation of thought for the kitchen and Greg. The food smelled good, frying eggs and toast, although Will was in charge of the grits.

Breakfast wasn't a meal until grits were involved.

Greg looked up, coffee cup halfway to his mouth, spatula in hand. "Hey."

"He's conscious. Awake might be overstating the situation." He cocked an eyebrow at Greg, watching Mal snuffle through his food bowl for breakfast.

"Yeah, well. You did kind of... blow his mind open last night." That definitely worried him. It was mostly in the back of his mind, a concern that someone would find out and want to experiment on Will or put him away somewhere for the safety of the rest of the world.

It assumed, of course, that Will would go peacefully.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and then shrugged. "It was there. I didn't make him what he is."

"I know." He did, too, and when Will opened his eyes to look at him, Greg was flipping an egg, concentrating on not breaking the yolks. "It's just... very strange, to be honest about it. I mean, he was always all about empirical evidence. You know, _don't touch it, Greg_ , like whatever I knew wasn't real unless it was a hundred percent backed up by evidence. He never understood that what I could find out by touching could, in fact, be evidence."

"And that it's federally allowable as evidence if recorded or acted on quickly." Will kicked himself into gear, reached out for his spoon to stir the grits. There was orange juice to drink as well as coffee, and while they weren't good in the same mug, they did alternate well.

Greg hummed his answer and eyed his eggs before leaning over and stealing a kiss. "Mhm."

"Good morning. Has Jack slunk around yet?" Most likely was he just expecting them to put themselves in the horrible position that was coming, regardless of who was going to come calling. It was the sort of thing Jack would expect.

Reaching out to poke the toast, Greg shrugged. "Not yet, but I wouldn't make any promises. Crawford's an asshole, and if he thinks that he can get his hands on another psychic, it'll get him all excited."

"We'll just not mention it to him." Unless Alan already had. That was a tossup, how much of Will's behavior Alan reported or didn't report on any given day.

He liked that look; the slanted expression that as good as said _are you kidding me?_ made him want to smile. "I swear he's psychic and his talent is latching onto the latest talent walking into a hundred mile radius." Greg waved his spatula before grabbing a plate to take up his eggs. "Seriously."

"Only the law enforcement officer ones," Will drawled, getting a bowl out to put the grits into. "He's not allowed near the ones in D.C. proper."

"Because clearly so many of them must have restraining orders by now." Greg was grinning, though, turning off the eye under the eggs and reaching for the blue oven mitt.

"No one would probably let me file one." It wouldn't do any good anyway because they were old and had ruined each other's lives together in their own way. "We'll get Grissom's statement and get him on his way back to... wherever."

"Yeah." Yeah, but there was something of a sigh in that, a vague twinge of guilt that Greg wanted him to go. It would undoubtedly make him feel significantly better, and that bothered him a little.

It shouldn't have. Gil had done what he'd done, gone his own way in life, and then tried to see if he could have Greg back. While harboring that interesting fact. "You shouldn't feel guilty."

Greg shrugged. "Should and shouldn't don't have a lot to do with matters of the heart. In the long run. Besides...." The clink of silverware sounded. "Guilt's one of those things that just kind of pulls at everybody, I think. I mean, it's not my fault. It's Gil's fault, in the end. It's just...."

"It's just hard, and you still wish he wasn't suffering. Even if you want to set him on fire." The edges of his mouth twitched a little, before he shifted and nudged in close to Greg. "Which makes you a very good person."

"Something like that," Greg drawled, turning towards him. He tipped his chin, a clear request for kissing. Will wasn't a man to deny himself; Greg's mouth tasted like coffee and slow warmth that made Gil want to go back to the guest room and put a pillow over his head.

No, that wasn't right, and Will was sure he twitched before he pulled away from Greg more slowly than impulse demanded. "I see you're finally up. There's food."

"Clearly." There was nothing happy about that statement; never mind the steady, grudging irritation.

Greg cleared his throat. "Morning."

"I, uh..." Awkward, uncomfortable. Gil was wondering what was wrong with Will's joie de vivre to be acting like that given everything that had happened. It left Will wondering what was wrong with Gil's for him not to be acting that way.

He turned and deftly shoved toast out at Grissom. "Eat. We're getting out of here as soon as we're ready."

The awkward tension of it was thick in the air, and Greg shifted uncomfortably. "Um, yeah, I'll just...."

"No." It was a little surprising, the way Grissom blurted it. Even for Gil. "It's.... It's fine."

"Hopefully your car's still at Waffle House." He suggested it helpfully because carrying on and mowing over those awkward moments was what Will did to handle them best. He didn't want to have a Greg's relationship talk in his own house with a guy who'd been nothing but mental blocks. It sounded almost as fun as a root canal.

Greg was watching them both, and the wariness in him made Will want to reach out, kiss him again. "So, um. There are eggs. And grits, but I'm not sure about those."

"They're grits," Will shrugged. "I'm not sure how familiar you'd be with them, though, Grissom."

"Well." He spoke slowly, thoughtfully, some memory of a long-ago dish that the grits somehow resembled flitting through his mind. He had been in Africa at the time, and it had involved something like peanut butter. People's associations were sometimes deeply interesting and other times utterly mundane. "I suppose the least I can do is try them."

Greg wrinkled his nose faintly. "I think I'll stick with oatmeal if it's all the same."

Will snorted, and served some up into a bowl for Grissom. "At least you didn't say creamed wheat."

It was interesting, watching Grissom after that. His hand reached automatically for the bag of shredded cheddar Will had laid to the side, adding it without thinking about it or realizing that it was, in fact, the way that Will preferred his own. "There's nothing wrong with cream of wheat."

"Oatmeal," Greg insisted. He was rather fascinated with what Gil was doing, as well, but he knew the way that Will ate his grits.

Just, it was strange to see an uninitiated novice doing it right. "I think. You're in my head," Will pointed out idly, settling into a chair beside Greg.

The blink, the vague horror, it was rather enjoyable. "Oh."

Greg cleared his throat. "Uh. I think I'll go check on Mal." Because clearly discretion was the better part of valor.

"I highly recommend staying out of my head, but I appreciate that you're not projecting at the same time. The reverb..." Oh, good, he mentioned it and Grissom started it hard enough to make him grimace and put a hand out as if it was any help at all. "We're going to have to give statements in different buildings."

His voice was edged when he spoke, blue eyes following Greg as he walked out onto the lanai, calling Mal. "Then maybe you should have left well enough alone."

"You were already pulling the edges down before I did anything," Will reminded him, and thought hard about that first itchy thread feeling of reverberation between them. "It's not my fault you're a headcase in ways I'm unfamiliar with." He took a sip of his coffee. It was almost refreshing. He'd never had someone's ex to dislike before.

Never mind the enjoyment of poking him with proverbial sharp sticks.

Grissom only grunted in reply, sharp and peeved. Still, he proceeded to eat his breakfast, and Will could watch Greg and Mal from where he was, so the morning wasn't bad from his point of view. Greg knelt in the grass, carefully scruffing Mal, before letting Mal lean into him for hugs. Mal liked his little patches of grass, and Will kept it tidy back there, as much as he could.

"So, welcome to the pariah club."

"Fantastic." The sarcasm was something he could appreciate, in any case. "You realize this won't change my approach to evidence." Because of course anything that might make the job easier wouldn't be amazing and great to use. That would be expecting too much.

Will took another sip of his coffee, and started to finish off his grits. "Do I need to remind you just whose monograph you built your amendments on about dating time of death with insect activity?"

The clench of that jaw was tight, bull-in-a-china-shop stubborn. "All of that was scientifically quantifiable. And brilliant." The reluctance of that statement would have been obvious even if he hadn't been a psychic.

"I know. I teach forensics for a reason," he added, calmly, feeling as mellow as he sounded. "It's not just because of my stunning personality. You can be both scientifically viable, and be open to knowing when someone near you is going to shoot and kill your partner."

Or worse. Funny, that Hannibal had so carefully danced in thought-rooms that let him hide from Will for so long.

That statement seemed to shake the other man, make him consider things he hadn't been before now. "Has that happened to you? Before now?"

"Yes. I catch things. Old murders, murders before they happen... It's funny, actually. I'm shit at protecting myself, but I've gotten very good at protecting my loved ones." He had to after Josh. Had to be vigilant always, and it wasn't as if he got that many people close to him. Just Jack... and Greg. He would kill for Greg if it became necessary.

Gil dawdled his spoon through his grits. He had eaten a rather remarkable amount of them, a fact that pleased Will to no end. "I see."

"Maybe you do." Will took another sip, finishing off his coffee. "It's not all or nothing. You can be everything. You can open and close your mind and you can work forensics at the same time. But you'll never be as good at it as I am."

No matter how hard he tried.

The sound of Gil's spoon rattling on the table was loud in the quiet. "I...."

Will smirked and ducked his head, standing up at last. He could feel Gil's anxiety and his unease, palpable in the air. "Sorry, there isn't much to say to that, is there? I'll find the drugs Alan brought over. For the bone shrapnel issue."

The hum of an answer was unsurprising. The fact that he was watching Greg out the window and wondering if he had been bested at everything was, in all honesty, enjoyable. He was such a bastard sometimes.

It was all right, Will decided, to be a bit of a bastard. "Don't tell Jack that you're a telepath. Don't mention any of that when we give our statements." Will fished the bottles out of the fridge. "Don't, in fact, trust Jack. I'm still pissed at him for getting Greg tangled up in any of this."

Reverb again, Gil fumbling at the thought and sickened by everything that had happened. Any good man would be. "He likes to collect psychics. Whether they're trained or not."

"Yes." Yes, Kolya did, yes, Jack did. It took Will a moment to brush Gil back, taking away the reverb, because he always remembered everything fresh like it was there. Fresh like he was on his hands and knees again and his body was screaming pain on its way to skin grafts. 

He set the pills down a little hard. "Sorry."

"Sorry." It was spoken reflexively, he supposed, the reaction sharp edged, delicate. Both of them jerked when the door came open, Mal wiggling his way inside awkwardly, panting.

Greg blinked at them from the door. "Sorry, did we startle you?"

"Kind of." Will broke away, shaking his head and finding he was still holding the grits bowl. Mal wanted some in a whiny interested snuffling way, so Will crouched down and just absorbed that fresh grass and Mal, and Greg's worry, clearing away the old stuff. Things he didn't want to touch. "Yeah, who loves grits? Everyone but Greg, that's right, Mal."

No matter how long he lived, dogs would always have the best thoughts. "Gil, you traitor. You ate the damn things."

Grissom glanced down at the bowl, blinking. "Uh...."

"Nummy grits," Will smirked, leaning forwards to press his cheek against Mal's flopped ear. That felt better, and he could creak up from the floor, let Mal tidy off the bowl more than good enough for the dishwasher. "I'll drive, if we're all ready to go...?"

That prompted Greg to move towards the bedroom. "Let me toss on some shoes and we can go and get this over with. I'm surprised that Jack wasn't waiting for us at the front door before Mal even went out to pee."

"Yeah, well. Sometimes even Jack knows when to stay away." Usually when Will was injured. He was more likely to say no, and they were both injured right then, just not reeling with it. Fuck, he'd had shrapnel from a human body in his face, near his eye. The fact that it didn't feel infected, only sore, was a miracle. It was hard not to feel possessive of the pieces of himself he still had.

Grissom was grimacing on his side of the table, jaw clenched. "This is...." Difficult. Undoubtedly, because he was getting to know a great deal more about Will than he had ever wanted to know, at a guess.

"You're going to need to shut down or deal with it." Will gave Mal one last good gentle scruffing and moved to get his keys in hand, his pack.

The look that earned him was vicious. "If you hadn't done whatever it was that you did...."

"Oh, for god's sake. Do you both just want to whip them out and compare and get it over with?"

"I'm trying to head for the door and leave," Will pointed out, because he had his keys in hand. "I don't know what the hell he's doing, except mental masturbation over what ifs."

Grissom cursed, short and vicious, and turned away from him. He didn't look at Greg at all, just walked towards the door as if he could get anywhere without Greg driving. As if either of them could, and Will glanced over to see Greg rubbing the bridge of his nose as if his head ached. It probably did.

Will could tell it was going to be a long day.

~*~*~*~

Maybe if he just killed his ex and buried him under cement somewhere, life would get better.

Of course, then he would have to figure out some way to cover up the fact that he had killed Grissom, and that never led to anything good. Not that he'd noticed, anyway. Of course, he was a forensics expert, and he was pretty sure that Will would help him hide the body, but what the hell. He'd feel guilty if he did it. It'd end all tell-tale heart, and Will wouldn't care except that Greg cared. Still, he was looking forward to when Grissom left and let it go and got out of their way before Will just threw a mug at Grissom's head right there with everyone watching. Every once in a while they'd overlap, and he could see Will stiffen as if he could hear the reverberation.

Ugh.

He had been grateful to escape back to his lab and his samples. There were assloads from the explosion, bits and pieces of everybody who had been there and exemplars to run that would take him weeks. Maybe if he just moved into his lab, it would all work out in the long run. Will could see him, Gil could disappear at GWU, and everything would be rainbows and puppy dogs.

Yeah. His life never worked that way for some reason.

So much filing, and he didn't know what they were up to. He was curious. Running DNA on bits and fragments that the coroner sent to him, helping him map out who had been whom. There were two bodies, and then there were pieces of a secondary explosion that had been safely detonated. He had exemplars for Will and Gil and half the coroner's office, it felt like, and he was going to be running them forever.

At least he wasn't Chuck. Chuck was still trying to recover something of the bite marks off of what was left of the pieces. Greg figured he should be grateful for small favors.

He was mostly grateful, too, when Will cracked open the door and slipped into his space quietly. Will had on what he affectionately called _part of my cheap suit collection_ , and it kind of was. The shirt was dark blue and the jacket and pants were black, and the tie was something sort of atrocious and raspberry.

"I like my atrocious raspberry tie."

"Your raspberry tie is so atrocious that I expect it'll find its way to the back of the closet." And from there either into the garbage or the hopefully-someday-soon sex box.

Just at the moment, Greg was hoping it would find its way into the sex box. Most of their sex life seemed to be coitus interruptus but it was a nice thought to have.

Will gave a quiet huff, and pulled up a wheeled stool to perch on, still not quite in Greg's line of sight. "I suppose if I tie your wrists with it, I can't really wear it to work again."

"Mmmmm." Hot thought. Very hot, visual kind of thought, even, having his wrists wrapped in Will's tie and held up and out of the way seemed like a great idea. Actual tying was probably out of the question, considering, but that wouldn't be too much.

And they'd get some use out of the tie.

Clearing his throat, Greg reached for a pipette. "So how did things go with Jack?"

"We're taking a break. We've reached the angry stage of throwing shit at the wall to see if it sticks." Will sniffed, doing the head-clear inhale that Greg recognized. "I think Grissom was finally going to leave."

"Thank God." Maybe that made him an asshole but he was grateful as hell. It just... it was all too much. The creepy factor of their similarities kind of crept up now and then and made him twitch, too. Dammit.

"Yeah, well." Will's chair squeaked, a little closer. "I'm still bothered that he amended my monograph and still feels I need insect lectures."

That definitely didn't help things. "I don't think he can help himself. It's not that he means to be an asshole, it's just...." Yeah. He had no idea. Maybe in this case he completely meant it.

"It's hard to guess. How're you doing?" Not _is there anything interesting on the case_. Not _what're your results_. Just _how're you doing_. The case would come, it was there. Will was trying to center himself, and that was almost healthy. It made Gil look really fucking bad by comparison, and Greg was starting to think that maybe the whole proposing to Sara and hotfooting it to Colombia was clearly a pretty good thing for him.

Stripping off a glove, he reached over and laid his hand against Will's face. There wasn't anything there; flashes of morning and toothbrushes, trimming his beard and mustache. Nice, normal, everyday kinds of things, and it made him lean over and catch his mouth for a quick kiss before leaning back again. "Hm. Definitely better now."

The edge of Will's mouth quirked up a little. "Good. Can I loiter down here until I need to get back?" He wouldn't touch anything, and there were no impressions he could contaminate the place with. Nothing hard and spiky, no lingering bits of the explosion still clinging to him. It made Greg glad he hadn't been there for it, and wish they weren't at work just then, either.

"Yeah. I was just about to finish up the exemplars for you and Grissom." It was easier to start with known comparisons, and he could at least be sure about the two of them even if he couldn't be sure of anything else.

Will sighed. "Jesus, Fred's wife. He was right over the body when the explosion went." And Will and Grissom had been so close to it, too? "I've never seen anything like it."

Greg wished that he hadn't. Just thinking about explosions gave him the heebie-jeebies, bad memories left and right. The idea that things could have been worse than they'd already been, well. It was never good. "I'm glad I didn't see it."

"I'm glad you didn't, too. It... we're not going out into the field for this. I'll work twenty-four hour days, but I won't be going away from my desk." Maybe Will was saying it out loud as much to convince himself as to tell Greg.

Hopefully it wasn't that. Most likely it was, though, and so Greg smiled and put a brave face on it because that was what he did. "Then I'll just have to make sure that you come home and get some rest now and again."

Home. That was funny, considering they both had their own places. It sounded like... Well. It sounded good, anyway. Comfortable, easy. So very easy.

"I will." Will's voice pitched a little softer. It was the first time since Harrisonburg that Jack had tried to yank him into a case, and Greg didn't know, exactly, what was going through his head on it. He could make a good guess, though -- fear and the usual patterns fighting it out. The stool squeaked again. "Well, I think fear's winning, which feels sort of shitty, but."

"You shouldn't feel bad about it." Greg leaned on the counter, watching Will outright. "Hell, I'm afraid, and I was doing the chasing, not living through all of that."

"But there's a killer out there." A killer who wouldn't stop until someone stopped him. Will rubbed at the side of his jaw for a moment, and sat up a little straighter. "If I could stop a murder, but don't because I feel shitty... after what happened to Fred on scene..."

Yeah, there was always a but. Greg wondered what it was that made Will think he was responsible for this kind of shit. "Yeah, there is. And yeah, he does bad things, but Will... you're not responsible for what some crazy asshole does. You're not even responsible for catching him, because that's too much for one person. You're just responsible for the stuff we do, and chasing after him outside of this place? It's not on the list."

He could see Will working through it, playing it out in his mind. "Yeah. It shouldn't be." It might if Will got on a roll, though, and that was horrifying. Will slouched a little, and lifted his eyebrows at Greg as if in apology. "I'll try not to."

"I'd appreciate that." He would, too. The thing of it was that he'd nearly lost Will before he'd even had him. Now that he did... Well.

He didn't want to let go.

"I'll get you coffee," Will said after a moment, standing up with that restless sort of posture Greg was accustomed to seeing. "And find some snacks. They're bringing more samples your way."

Fantastic. Just great. Well, at least he was busy, and the beeps said he had some results in, so he leaned over and caught another kiss before he gave Will a smile and hummed agreement. "Okay."

"Thanks." Will lingered for a moment, still close to Greg for a long moment before he stepped back. "Yeah, I should go or else I'm never leaving."

Damn. "I'd be okay with that. We could set up shop in the corner, there. I'm pretty sure Chuck would be willing to schlep us snacks back and forth. Maybe we could even manage cots."

"We might manage cots yet." Will pulled back, and okay. He might at least get coffee out of it, so he was willing to let Will out of his grasp for a little while. At least if he was in the area, he wasn't getting in trouble, and Greg knew how to be appreciative for the small things. 

"Go and come back with my coffee." Demanding, yes, but he could be for the moment. Besides, he'd run the exemplars and needed to check that they were all right before he could move on to bigger and better things.

He didn't need to be touching Will to know that his smile was slight but real, to feel the easy warmth. He'd have coffee and companionship until Will decided to go back to work and to deal with Jack, and that was all right. Then again, Jack was kind of like poison ivy. He showed up when he was least wanted and stuck around until long after the wedding and honeymoon, so to speak. With that thought in mind, he picked up the results and began shuffling through them. Fred's looked okay, and considering most of the body parts that were not the victim would be Fred's, that was good, or at least not bad. Andy's seemed pretty all right, too, and so Greg flipped over to Gil's and nodded to himself before flicking Will's into sight.

Then he looked back at Gil's. And then back to Will's, because there was assuming and then there was seeing the patterns of a clear familial resemblance that he didn't want to think about or analyze any deeper than just a peek. The data looked good, though. Good and horrifying.

Shit.

Shit.

Maybe it was just some unknown family branch. Maybe twins had married twins or something completely insane for them to look like that, and okay, maybe it was vitally, completely, insanely _wrong_ , but comparison was only a mouse click or seven away and his fingers felt like maybe they had a life of their own.

He needed to not. Not do that. He needed not to look, because denial was an excellent place for a vacation, with a giant piña colada and a huge pool float. To click or not to click? When there were so many other things to be run.

It was appalling, how far curiosity took him.

The look on his face probably would have said it all even if Will weren't psychic, but the fact that he was would completely mean that there would be no hiding this particular problem. Fuck.

"I think we have decent coffee for you," Will offered, coming back into the lab. "Jack's sort of wandering this way, but he's moving slow. He's trying to work out what to say."

So was Greg. Perhaps it was the shock of it, keeping his mind blank of anything except the question of what the hell he was supposed to say. Maybe it was just that he didn't know what the hell to do about it. About any of it.

"You don't actually have to say anything." Will shrugged, holding the coffee cup out for Greg, and a Butterfinger bar to go with it.

"But...." But that was just warped, truly, and he didn't know what to say about it. It didn't seem to bother Will, so maybe it hadn't ought to bother him, either, but....

It was just bizarre.

Not many people crossed a continent to sleep with their ex-boyfriend's brother. "Right, well. It wasn't on purpose, and I'd never had the pleasure of meeting him before that I remember, so..." Will's fingers nudged his while he held out the coffee cup.

"So...." Greg licked his lips and shrugged his shoulder, peering through his lashes at Will. "You don't find me completely creepy now, right?"

"I'm probably the wrong person to ask that question. But no." Will lingered in closer, sliding fingers over the back of Greg's hand in a way that made Greg want to go home now.

Six more hours. Maybe. And at least Gil would be going back to his place and they wouldn't have to cope with... all of this. Not coping was a method of handling with things, right? It seemed to work out pretty well for them in the long run. "Are you going to say anything to him?"

"Not unless you want me to." Which left the ball in his court, in his hands. He liked to hold on to things like that, information. Things that made good blackmail. Particularly if someone were trying to blackmail him.

It was just the way he thought.

"I don't know." He wasn't even sure he wanted to know himself, and wasn't that a conundrum? "It's... It'll work itself out or it won't." And Gil probably wouldn't be happy either way.

"Right. I'm going to go intercept Jack, then." Will pulled away, and at least he'd left Greg coffee and a snack. Something to snack on between runs of data he didn't want to handle.

God.

"Hey." He watched Will pause in the doorway and glance back at him. "You know that what we... that I... that it's nothing to do with that part. You know, right?"

"I do." On a lot of levels, Will probably knew it better than Greg did. He lingered for a moment and then left with half a wave, tromping off down the hallway fast.

It was kind of the same walk, even, and that was going to be weird for a while to come. He'd get over it; Will was worth that to him, that and more. If Gil ever found put, he wasn't sure what he might do about it. Sulk more, maybe. Try to convince him that it was all about Gil somehow, what he had with Will. It wouldn't work, but Greg was pretty sure he would try.

Better not to say anything at all, then, and avoid the whole confrontation.

He worked for a while in quiet, and figured that Will had gotten dragged back into the analysis. That was all right, and he fell into a pattern, just running each sample, meticulous and relaxed until he heard a quiet knock at the door.

Looking up, he felt his stomach drop, a twisting sort of anxiety. Of course this wasn't going to be easy. It wasn't that kind of day. "Gil."

Grissom looked curious and thoughtful and intense at the same time. But at least he wasn't hearing the reverberations in his head, or watching Will flinch hard at him. "Greg. I... thank you for letting me stay last night."

"Eh. Don't worry about it. It was.... you needed somewhere to stay, preferably where someone could make sure you were all right." That was how things were. Just because everything had gone to hell in a hand basket was no reason to be an asshole about things.

A faint nod from Gil, and for all Greg knew he was nodding to his thoughts. "Well, I. I'm sorry. About... I didn't know."

"It's okay." Never mind that it hadn't been, not really. Greg had felt inferior half the time and useless the rest. He knew how not to be obvious, Isoäiti had taught him that. Not being able to help because Gil wouldn't accept anything beyond empiric knowledge had been hard. "Now you know."

"I still can't... how is it at all viable? How do you balance it?" Easily, like breathing, mostly by not being an asshole.

That was something to consider in any case. "It's just... something I do. Not everyone can. A lot of psychics burn out early, especially the telepaths. It's constant. It's part of life, from the time it comes on until..." Greg shrugged, stripping off a glove. He reached out and laid his hand on the candy bar. "The guy who stocks the machines, he was having a bad day when he put it in. His daughter's just been diagnosed with leukemia. She's eight. He's a single dad. His wife ran off with some guy with a ridiculous number of tattoos, short and balding and not even remotely attractive." He licked his lips and sighed. "It's just... It's just part of my life, Gil. And it's a part that I shut away for years in Vegas. It was like, like walking around blind or with no sense of smell or something."

"It's too much." Gil countered quietly. "I hear everything. I can focus, shut it down, but if I stop focusing, I just hear -- everything. Songs people are hearing in their heads, grocery lists, conversations they're having. How is that useful?"

His mouth twitched into something like a smile and he reached for a new glove. "Pretty much, not so much. Not now. You have to learn to control it in order for it to be useful. Will... He was... What do you know about the history of psychics? I mean, it's different for a lot of the world, and not good for the psychics mostly. But generationally speaking, the last three generations have had vastly different experiences. My grandmother got no formal teaching. Her hands are branded and there were a lot of other things that she suffered that there's no point in talking about now. What she learned about control, though, it was familial. It was something that she taught all of the psychics in my family when the time came, because the psychics from Will's generation, your generation, it sucked. Everyone was stuck in segregated schools and got shitty training and people were afraid to teach what they knew to their kids. In Will's case, it wasn't something he could have learned because," and there, it was something he didn't want to think about, ever, "it wasn't his mother's side of the family and his dad split. It got better by the time people my age hit school, and we learned more about control. And again, there was my grandmother. She taught me, too. You've gotta have someone who can teach you these things, Gil. You can find that now. Will...." Will. "He's, there's something blocking his ability to retain control. I don't know if it's the crap education or if it's something else but there's a blockage and I can't figure out what it is. I don't think you'll have that because you've got different experiences."

"No, I can make it go quiet." Yeah, less than twenty-four hours after finally realizing what it was he could do, Gil had it completely under his control, and that explained a lot about their relationship. "Maybe it does."

"Probably it does." Greg tilted his head and looked at him. "Which makes you a lot more lucky than Will when you get right down to it."

He kept peering at Greg, watching as he started to open the candy bar absently to break off a piece. "And you saved his life."

Yeah. He had. "With those talents you never wanted to put to use, even." It hadn't been fun. It had, in fact, hurt like fucking hell. He used his gifts a lot more often these days. It wasn't anywhere close to being as painful as it had been after using it so little for so long. Now he could touch things and not crumble inside because it was easier, something he did as a routine. Doing it back in Vegas had been so hard, knowing and not having a damn soul listen to him... 

Gil opened his mouth and then closed it, his eyes squinting a little. "I think Graham's a little crazy, Greg."

Maybe. Probably, even, and so Greg smiled and nodded slowly. "A little. Yeah. Maybe. It doesn't change anything."

"Apparently not." Gil frowned, and looked back over his shoulder. "The case looks like it's going to develop very fast. It's clear he targeted the first responders."

That was a possibility. Then again... "I don't think it's about targeting them. I think it's about the destruction of evidence. He wants everyone to know what he did. He just doesn't want us to be able to connect it to anything else."

"Has it worked?" Greg didn't know, and hadn't Gil been the one in the meetings?

"It won't." He raised both hands and wiggled his fingers. "Empirical evidence is something I'm very good at finding. And with all of the extra little boosts from my other talents...."

"And you're happy here." He was pretty sure he'd already said that to Gil five or twelve times, but yeah. He was happy. Things with Gil and Sara had been good. They'd been amazing, and god, the sex had been epic. Completely amazing, and he had thought that was a sign. He had thought that they loved him as much as he'd loved him.

The fact that they didn't sucked in ways that didn't bear consideration. "Yeah. I'm happy."

He watched Gil pick words out of the air, and maybe thoughts to go with it. "You look like this shining diamond in Graham's mind. It's all dog thoughts and here and now, and then there's you." But the thing was, Will knew that. Will knew what his thoughts looked like, and Grissom probably wasn't willing to look inside.

He wondered what Gil might see if he did.

"I'm pretty sure he loves me." Greg was good with that. He'd always been kind of grateful for love in all its forms. His family was big and they tended to envelope newcomers with open arms so it got to be habit after a while.

A relatively easy habit. "I.... sometimes wonder if I'd recognize love if it hit me."

"Not that I'm biased or anything, but no. You wouldn't." Because Greg had loved him stupidly, with all he had, and Gil had pretty much fucked him. He'd needed to cross the country to try and get himself together, for god's sake. "Maybe this will help."

"Probably not." Gil shrugged. "I, uh... Do you know someone you could recommend to teach me control?"

Control had always been important to Gil. It wasn't surprising that it was something he wanted now. "I'll look into it. I don't know anyone locally, and the talents in my family tend to be more like me." They were all taught from the ground up, and Greg was pretty sure that wasn't going to work for Gil.

"Useful." As if reading minds was use _less_. That was shortsighted, uncreative and so blatantly annoying that Greg almost bit his tongue while he chewed. Gil was starting to flush slightly. "I'll have to work on that."

"It'll take a while to change how you think about it." Greg chewed on his next thought for a few seconds. "It's unusual to come into this so late. I think maybe you and Will are just on the same frequency or something."

"Because we're, he's... we're related." Gil wasn't stating it or asking it, just putting it out there. "Somehow. He didn't start out wide open, did he? And I started with a block. And then someone intervened."

Crap. "Something like that, yeah." Greg didn't ask any questions. Some things were better left unanswered in his experience.

Gil had always made the connections between things, even when they seemed illogical. "But he never told you? And you still know it." He wasn't sure what Gil wanted to know, where he was going with this conversation.

"Yes." What was he getting at, anyway? Of course he knew. He just did.

"So you either read it off of him at some point..." Gil was playing it through in his head, and Greg wished he'd stop. "And don't remember. Or he pushed that information at you."

That wasn't a good place to go. "I touch things. All around his house. I touch him. If you think that I wouldn't get something like that off of objects, off of just about anything, you're wrong."

"How can you be sure?" Because Will was either comfortably crazy or he was an evil genius, but he couldn't be both at once.

"How could I be sure about you?" It was maybe the wrong question considering how things had turned out in the end. "How can you be sure about anything? Nothing in life comes with a written guarantee, Gil. Nothing. You make decisions about everything in life. Maybe you can't decide who you love." If that was a possibility, there would have been a lot less by way of heartbreak for most people, just at a guess. "Maybe a lot of things. But Gil?" His teeth were clenched. "Some things I can be very certain about, and this? This is one of those things."

Gil put up his hands slightly, as if he were surrendering to Greg. "All right. I just thought I should ask."

Licking his lips, he drew in a deep breath. "Just because I was wrong about you doesn't mean that I'm wrong about Will."

"You thought too much of me. And I didn't deserve it." He gestured to the table behind Greg. "I'll leave you alone."

Shit.

Okay, he sucked at confrontational discussion, clearly. "I'm sorry, it's just... stress, and I shouldn't take it out on you."

"Well, I'm pressing hard," Grissom shrugged. "I still find Graham strange, but I don't suppose that's going to change."

Greg was pretty sure that Will was full-scale strange, in point of fact, but so was Gil. For some reason, Greg seemed to have quite the thing for strange. Then again, he'd never been all that normal himself. "Maybe not. Probably not."

"No, likely not. Good luck with the case." He didn't know if that meant Gil was leaving him alone or not getting involved in it. That seemed unlikely.

Both of those things.

Still. Gil would do what Gil would do, and Greg would have to do the same. "Thanks."

Gil wandered off with half a wave, in his own little world that now encroached on other little worlds, which was something he didn't have to deal with before. Maybe he needed the good luck more than Greg did. Probably so, considering how things had ended with all of them.

The thing about choices, in Greg's experience, was that there were good choices and bad ones. A man could only be responsible for his own, whichever they were.

Gil would just have to live with his as much as Greg did.

~*~*~*~

He had everything laid out in front of him. Pictures, evidence, information, and a quiet room all to himself, except he could hear everyone whispering while he focused on the evidence, trying to link scene to scene to scene.

The urge to request that they all shut up was clawing up at him, his teeth clenching in response. He could remember a time when that wouldn't have gotten on his nerves. The fact that he was still a little raw from everything was the most likely reason. He needed to try and center himself enough so that he didn't react this badly to the lot of them.

It wasn't their fault and it wasn't his fault, but it was something he could control if he just relaxed. It was paradoxical that relaxing solved it all but it did. it solved him, so he took a deep breath and stretched fingers, reaching for the few pictures of the most recent scene before the explosion. It left him grateful for digital cameras -- they survived so much more than film ever had, cellulose that was so sensitive to heat and damage and blasts.

He could hear Jack's voice, quiet and soft, a steady murmuring sound that he had come to rely on over the years. Jack was an asshole, sure, but he was familiar. Steady. Part of Will's life, and it helped to stabilize him somehow. "So, we got all of these things. What do they say about the guy?"

"They say that he enjoys a good explosion." Will deadpanned it, moving on to the previous set of photos and then back. He didn't need the photos, he just... wanted a cue, wanted something to hold onto.

"No shit, buddy." He could hear the scrape of a chair, feel the workings of all of their minds, quick but steady. "Why frozen?"

"Because we've got it right," Bob answered. "He's a trucker. The body's been in the back of a refrigerated truck, gotta be."

"I agree. It keeps the bodies for him. Did the goose head have hints of frost and thawing?" Will reached for that narrow file, because he knew it went back that far.

Hemming and hawing, just a bit. "Somebody get Chuck up here. He ought to have the bite comparison by now."

Will leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. He could see both scenes, and remember the pictures of the goose now. What was their man getting out of it? That was the important part. What did he get out of killing the investigators, what did he get out of biting the women?

"Sexual thrill." That was Grissom, standing in the doorway. "Some people fetishize an incident to the point at which they can't come to completion without it. The biting was the way it started. It isn't enough anymore."

"No shit, asshole." Will tilted his head back, looking at Grissom upside down. "Beyond that. What was the incident? What started it? What's he imagining? That's the important part. Is the cold storage convenience or is it an extension of his fantasies? Does he fuck them cold? Does he thaw them out for extra fun? Or is it just convenient trophy storage?"

The faint echo in his head was supremely irritating. "Why can't it be both? We lack empiric evidence at this point. We have bodies and bombs. Extrapolation was... never my fine point." The rest of the room had stopped, watching both of them with interest. "Start with the obvious and work your way through to the hypothetical. That's all I'm trying to do."

"Right, well you can do it _in another building_ , because I start with the obvious and work my way forward, and I've gotten past that initial step of maybe our guy's got a fetish," Will snapped.

Grissom was looking at him, his expression steady, emotionless. "Then tell me where you've gotten and we'll go from there. I want to help."

The sound of someone's whispered question echoed the thoughts of everyone else. "Who is this guy?"

"Gilbert Grissom, works at GWU, Forensics, LWOP from the Vegas crime lab. Locals brought him in as a consult from the first scene." Will shifted in the chair so he didn't have to look at Grissom upside down, because the world was flipped upside down quite enough. "I'm so close to having a profile on this guy, except every three minutes someone pops in and starts talking."

"Everybody shut the fuck up." Jack might look like hell, and he might not feel any better, but he still had that crazy voice of authority. Everyone went still and looked at Will.

No pressure or anything.

Will turned around, reaching for the photos again. "All right. Thank you." It felt right to say thanks, to duck his head down and just focus again. He knew this guy, knew how he was doing them and part of the why -- military or police washout, he'd need to study his style a little more to be sure of which -- and the thawing and re-freezing habits. But the women didn't have any particular line tying them physically, just their easy prey occupation.

He could feel Grissom's thoughts tumbling along beside his own, speeding up with each second as he caught at the edges of what Will was thinking. It was almost as irritating as him talking, and then he opened his mouth and spoke. "Geese."

"Yes, geese are prey. And you're going to be prey, too, if you don't get out of my head!" He slammed his hand down on the table and was halfway to spinning out of his chair and lunging at Grissom when Jack caught Will across the chest with his arm instead.

The fact that Grissom didn't seem shocked made him all the more angry. The rest of the people present were shifting, moving away, uncomfortable.

He spoke again despite the struggle between Will and Jack, raising his voice to be heard. "No. Geese. They can be vicious if threatened, almost seem to sense when someone is afraid of them. Maybe we're looking for someone who lived around them, raised them. I've heard people say that they bite, hard enough to bring up blood blisters. Maybe a family member raised geese. It might explain the swan, although the escalation seems to have been extremely rapid."

"Or the head was frozen for a few years and then ditched as bait." Jack seemed to ease back, and Will got himself on his feet without fighting Jack. "I'm still warning you to get out of here."

"No." Christ. He had some sort of death wish, clearly. "There's some connection here. Something beyond the obvious, and I don't mean this case."

"Great, fucking great for you. Jack, get him out of here. I can't think with this asshole echoing my every thought back at me." He wanted him gone and he wanted it quiet and he wanted his fucking workplace back and his space back.

He wanted Grissom to fuck off and stop getting his damned hands all over the things that belonged to him, dammit.

The man gave a sigh, clearly exasperated and impatient. "Fine. But you want to look into farms that supply geese and other fowl, check with probation and local law enforcement in those areas. My guess is that our subject probably lived in a rural or underdeveloped area, maybe went into the military for a while to escape it. May or may not have been dishonorably discharged. I'm sure you can explain the rest." Yes, the rest of the things that asshole had probably pulled right out of Will's head.

"You're damn fucking right I will because you _pulled it out of my head in the first place_." He shook Jack's hand off of his arm, and Jack was just staring at him while he stormed up to Grissom. Didn't touch him, not yet, but it was there and Jack was scared of it because he'd put Lounds through a windshield once and that had been hard enough to explain. And then he touched Grissom's mind just to watch him flinch back from the reverberation, to remind him that Grissom could read but Will could _push_. "You don't take thoughts without crediting them, and you don't do that shit to people you want to work with. Get out of here and get your shit straight."

It left him wondering about that revision of his monograph, though, the one he'd never gotten around to writing because his life had gone to shit but Grissom had written.

He hadn't thought about the geese.

Grissom shrugged at him, frowning. His head clearly ached, and there was some remnant of his conversation with Greg there. Something about diamonds? "You'll have to forgive my lack of knowledge regarding the etiquette of mind-reading. If you decide you need my services after all....."

They knew where to find him. at least until Will decided he couldn't put up with it and if he didn't get space from the guy and fast he was going to wring his neck the old fashioned way. "Go back to Vegas."

He detested that look. Maybe it was just his natural expression, but Will felt that it was more smug superiority. "I wouldn't give you the satisfaction."

"Shame." He was half-curious what would happen if Hannibal ever came west again and ran into Grissom -- but there would be no surprise to it and Hannibal would no doubt rather relish Will's rage at the man than mitigate him through a meal.

Nothing ever seemed to go his way. Nothing except Greg, anyway, and that was a stabilizing thought, one that allowed him to pull himself away from the anger. Which was good, because it had apparently been a while since he'd flipped out, given the way the team was eyeing him once Grissom left. "What?"

"Nothing," Bob said, but it was the sort of nothing that said something.

Jack was eying him suspiciously. "What the hell was that?"

"Budding psychic." Will clenched his teeth, rolling his shoulders to try to relax. "I triggered him off. He's also Greg's ex, so I'd kind of like to put him in a trash compactor."

"Ohhh." Yeah, half the room seemed to get that.

"You gonna be able to work with him if it comes to it?" Jack asked.

He didn't even stop to see what the fuck Jack was thinking. "What do you think the answer to that is, Jack? You saw how that just went down."

It was obvious even without paying attention that Jack knew something was up with them and equally as apparent that it had piqued his curiosity. "Hit the hall with me a minute. You guys, keep looking at what we've got."

He kept his mouth shut and stepped out with Jack. It wasn't a dressing down -- Jack knew that would get him nowhere at all given their working relationship -- but he was curious as to what Jack thought he was going to say. Curious enough to let him say it.

The shutting of the door left the space between them quiet for a bit, or at least quieter than the clearly too aware sound of the conference room behind them. Ten years ago, Jack would have been lighting up, glaring around, his thoughts a tumble of impatience and irritation. Now, it was just a long stretch of tired and thoughtful. "I think I'm gonna call Alan and talk to him. It's been a long time since I saw you like this."

He rubbed at his face, mouth tight. "Jack. Imagine that you had a brother out there somewhere. And maybe he's not so much a brother, but a smug asshole in your same field of work. Who assumes you don't know your job."

Ohhh.

Jack didn't say it, but it was there all the same, floating in the air. "So. Sanders. His ex, huh?"

"Yeah. You remember the guy who revised my monograph? Same person. Just now stretching his psychic powers. If you want him working this case, I'm going to give us up to the killer as bait without knowing what I'm doing."

The answer was just no. No, full stop, period, end of discussion, and they hadn't even had the discussion itself yet. "No," Jack agreed. "But what I want and what we get, they're different things sometimes." That said a lot about his failing influence in their division. Will hadn't noticed it or thought about it much until the last few moments, but it was there now, real and maybe disturbing as hell.

"He's not even licensed in Virginia." Will could feel his expression going colder, trying to ease back the tension. "Seriously, what the hell. We're now accepting random professors. I have a list longer than my arm of random fucking professors I'd rather have helping on a case."

"Apparently he's worth an assload as a consultant. What the hell do I know? But I'll tell you this. I'll do my damnedest to make sure that neither one of you is within a hundred yards of the other. It's a pain in the ass and it's not good enough, but it's what I've got." Along with shaking hands.

"Fine. Fine. He gets near me, though, and I'll shut him down." He didn't need to elaborate for Jack. He was just going to leave it there.

It was better for everyone concerned if that was the case.

"Look. Will." That sigh was one he knew well. "Just... I'm calling Alan."

"Why?" He didn't lean on the wall too hard, didn't cross his arms. It took effort.

"Jesus. Because the last time you blew up like that, we were stalking down another biter, okay?" He didn't like that scowl. "Because I'm your friend and I'm worried. I've been worried."

"He set a bomb at the crime scene, Jack, and blew us up last night. He killed our coroner." Will squinted at him for a moment. "And I nearly lost an eye to a bone shard. And you're worried that this bothers me?"

Reaching up, Jack shoved a hand in his hair, and Will could taste his thoughts. Regret, worry, more regret, and maybe he shouldn't be such a bastard. He couldn't seem to help himself, though. "I'm just worried. Period."

He took a moment, and then uttered, "I don't mean to make you worry. I just... It's easier when I'm handling my classes."

Slow nod. "I know." He did. Everybody else maybe didn't. Even Alan seemed to think Will could just... bounce back. Go back to being himself again, maybe, even when he couldn't. Not really. "I know. The kid's good for you, and I figure this makes it a hell of a lot harder."

"It does. I..." He knocked his heel against the wall. "I go to a live scene and it explodes, Jack."

That sigh again, tired. It bothered him. "I know."

He wanted to be doing course designs. "Right. So you can leave Alan out of it."

"The hell I can. I can't just not call Alan when I know, know for damn solid sure, that you're halfway to falling apart. It's not just the kid or the fact that you've got a new relation. It's all of the things in combination, the, the shit that we've lived through, the things that have happened..." Jack slumped. "Look. It would help."

"I don't respond well to it." He'd still do it. If Jack insisted, fine. He generally could get a hold of himself, and it was going to be okay.

"I know. Believe me. I know. It's just..." He watched Jack's fingers move, twitch, as if he wanted nothing more than a cigarette. "I'm retiring, Will."

"When?" He almost wanted to say congratulations. He almost wanted to clap Jack on the shoulder.

"When this is done. Last case." Deep breath. "After. You need to quit taking on this kind of shit. Tell 'em to fuck off, Will."

"Yeah. I tried that for years, Jack." The edge of his mouth quirked. "Congratulations. You should enjoy your retirement."

There was some thought there, vague and unformed, and then Jack shrugged. "C'mon. Let's get back to the meeting before the whole damn lot of 'em decide to come out here."

"I could kick the door a couple of times." He offered it slow and crooked, taking a step back from the wall. "Right."

"Right." Sharp nod, and Jack straightened his spine. "Let's go."

And all he had to do was solve the case.

~*~*~*~

Will needed a vacation. Before this was all said and done, Greg was seriously going to drag him out of the state to some state park with hunting equipment and lube and just spend a week or two.

Better yet, they could head to Minnesota. Auntie Vilja always had plenty of room, and he could probably manage to avoid Grandmother Sanders with a little careful planning. Still, he thought Will might respond better to the idea of going on a hiking, roughing it sort of trip. Greg was going to try, hopefully after the case ended and not before. With Will's luck, they'd get followed into the woods and killed there by a guy with a biting problem.

Sometimes he wondered what the hell Will had done in a former life to get such complete nutjobs chasing around in his area. Clearly whatever it had been, it had been extremely bad, because all of this?

This sucked.

"Hi." Will looked tight, strained as he settled in beside Greg. It was gathered up around his eyes, the edges of his mouth. He didn't need to touch him to know the case was pissing him off. The case and probably the whole thing with Grissom. That wasn't even a guess. That was a certainty, and he figured they'd just have to work around that bit. Somehow.

"Hey." Leaning over, he bussed a kiss across Will's mouth. "Rough day?"

"Yes." Will unfurled a little, sliding an arm over Greg's shoulders slowly. His neck cracked loud enough for Greg to wince. "Checked out three different locations personally, interviewed five families. Next shift is taking the rest of the list."

Yeah, that seemed like a lot of fun. "Do you guys need my help? I mean, aside from the DNA stuff. The..." He wriggled his fingers, settling against Will's side. "You know."

"None of the places I've gone had felt right yet." Will wasn't quite looking at Greg when he said it, but thinking. "Maybe soon. We'll see. I don't want Grissom involved."

He couldn't say that was unexpected. "The reverb?" Or more likely the other things, but asking for clarification never hurt.

"Did he ever admit that he wasn't..." Will stopped, looking for a better way to say it. "Infallible? That's mostly been the problem."

Good question. Greg couldn't remember, to be completely honest about it. He sucked that way. "Does a ridiculous inability to resist the draw of serial and spree killers count? It's like magic with him." He paused, considering that thought. "Clearly it's genetic."

Will gave a quiet laugh. "I just think I'm invincible."

"Invincible, infallible, clearly I need to pick something to be in the face of something like that. I dunno, maybe I can be ineffable." He grinned and curled himself comfortably against Will's side. Mal wandered in from the bedroom, all off-kilter walk and motions. It would probably make Will feel a hell of a lot better, all things considered. He liked dog thoughts.

Will exhaled, and stretched fingers out to pet Mal as he wandered in closer. "Yeah. They are pretty nice. I'm sorry things are sort of... weird right now."

Sort of weird. That was the understatement of the century. "It's completely fucking insanely weird, in fact, but it's what we've got. Besides..." Greg smiled. "If the world wasn't weird, I reckon I wouldn't know what to make of it."

The next laugh was better, easier, and Will leaned closer into Greg as well. "Jack's retiring."

Wow. That was... entirely unexpected and yet also completely expected in all ways at the same time. "He's not doing so well." There was something he couldn't put into words about it. 

"No, he's not. And he wants me to talk to Alan. I think... he should probably talk to Alan." It didn't feel right to Will, and there was probably a reason for that.

It didn't feel right to Greg, either; it wasn't an issue for Alan, or at least he didn't think so. It was something else. It was just a sliver of a thought, something his cousin Disa would be able to put into words, would be able to identify whatever it was. He just didn't have the same kind of talent. "I think he needs more than that. I just don't know what."

"He needs his purpose back." The side of Will's face was close, easy to touch particularly with him leaning back from Mal. He was tired, bone tired, and he was sad about the people they'd interviewed and he'd talked with Fred's family and he was oddly scared for Jack.

"Hey." Greg's fingers curved around Will's jaw. "Hey. It's... it's okay. It is, honestly. It's going to be okay, and even if it isn't, we're going to fumble our way through it and come out the other side. It's kind of what we do."

"I love you." Just close enough to kiss him, leaning in to press his mouth against Greg's. "I keep thinking if I fuck this up and get pulled into it, you'll kill me."

"If you fuck this up and get pulled into it, I'll probably come chasing after you. So, you know, consider the ramifications of that and maybe you'll manage to resist. Or something." He totally didn't believe that. Not in the least. Still, the feel of Will's mouth moving against his own as he spoke was... definitely on his list of favorite things.

"We should call out for dinner." And not leave the sofa. They'd have to get flat food, something that could be slid under the door, and Mal would have to retrieve it. "And, I'm trying not to get caught into the chase. I really am."

Greg hummed. "And the probability ratio on this is....?" Very damned small, just at a guess.

"We'll see?" Will had hopes at least, and he pressed a kiss against Greg's cheek, touching his jaw with lips. "I promise. I'm trying. I am. I don't want to lose you, this, anything..."

"Hey, hey...." Mmmm. The thing with the lips, it was nice. That and the facial hair. He liked the whole beard thing. Among a lot of others. "You won't. Okay? You won't."

Hell. Will sighed, and his fingers groped at Greg through the fabric of his t-shirt. "Sorry. It worries me."

"Yeah, well, don't." There was no need for that. "Or we can buy one of those things where you whistle and it beeps, and I can attach it to my belt loops when we go out. It'd be hard to lose me then."

"I'm a horrible whistler. One note." He felt a little like he was relaxing, maybe, pressing the pads of his fingers against the edge of Greg's hip, finally finding the end of his t-shirt. "Fears like this aren't rational."

Fears weren't rational to begin with; that was the reason they were fears, and everybody had them. "You don't have to be rational. Or even on-tune. Pretty sure it doesn't matter, and I'm still not going anywhere."

"He's already targeted us once." And back on the loop. Will could really neurotically gnaw on something when he got going. Then he laughed, leaning into Greg close enough that he could feel his five o clock shadow. "Jesus. Hannibal used to call it a wolf run. Chasing my own tail."

Greg couldn't help the shiver that worked through him; not really. Still, he did his best not to let it be known overmuch. "Yeah, well. It's okay with me if you chase your tail every now and then so long as you don't forget that I'm not going anywhere."

"Not willingly." Will exhaled slowly. "I love you. I'm not doing another live scene with this." Greg tried to keep his contrary thoughts quiet, but Will still laughed. "Hold on, I think we both need a beer if we're going to keep doing this."

Hell, they might even need hard liquor, but Greg smiled anyway and leaned into him just a little. "I like that plan. Maybe we should see what's in the fridge and toss something onto the grill while we're at it."

"Nice t-bone." Will sighed, and neither of them were moving yet. After a day like that, it was just good to be home, to rest, to live and feel alive. Just twenty four hours before, all three of them had been there, arguing and half-high from fear and adrenaline.

He was reluctant to ask, but it couldn't be helped. "Do you think he'll give up? Gil, I mean." He hoped so, but Greg had figured out a long time ago that there was a pretty big difference in what he hoped for and what he got.

"On fucking with things he has no right to get involved in? Hope so, or I'm going to snap him in half." And he'd do it by accident, or at least that would be what he claimed. Will snorted a little. "I'll have witnesses, too."

Yeah. Yeah, he would, but it worried Greg a little. Not for Gil, because that ship had sailed, but for Will, for so many reasons. Mostly, he worried because of what Will could do. If the rest of the world figured it out, if things went wrong.... Well. It would be fucking awful. The pushing, the control he had, it was the kind of thing that the normals had told horror stories about for centuries. It was the justification for all kinds of shit that made Greg afraid, not of Will but for him. "Maybe we can try to avoid that."

That got Will up off of the sofa, leaving only a light kiss to Greg's forehead. "That's my general goal. Not being a horror story, too. That's pretty high up on my to-do list. Do you want me to grill some corn with this? If things go south, this might be the last good meal we get for a couple of days."

Yeah, he thought that sounded good. "Yeah. I think we've got the things we need to stuff peppers. I can do that while you start the rest."

"Right. I'm all for pretending to be functional." Will was already pulling things out of the fridge for himself and Greg, so Greg followed him. A turn of the lazy susan got him meat tenderizer and the better part of the spice rack before he canted a hip against the countertop, watching for a long moment.

He enjoyed watching Will. There was something about the way that he moved, the economy of motion, that made him relax. Will's mind might be tangled, but the world narrowed, became simpler, when he was at home. It made his house seem warm and comforting, even more than Greg's apartment. "Hand me one of the medium sized pans?"

Done in seconds, and Will shut the door while he eyed the steaks before putting them on a plate to put a rough sort of rub into them. "There's a reason Home has so many connotations to it."

That much was true. "Yeah. Auntie Vilja's house feels like this; like everything is a simple memory, every touch is... I don't know. Just easy, I guess." Greg measured out a cup of water and put it on the back eye to heat, turning on the oven with a series of beeps.

"I know how that feels. Comfortable minds are probably a close comparison. Not organized, necessarily, just..." Yeah. Familiar. Familial, even, in some cases, and he was accustomed to that idea. He knew how to deal with that, even the frankly bizarre notion of people he knew making out on some of the more obscure surfaces.

It was a good thing nobody on his mom's side of the family had been a prude. Considering most of them were talented, it would have made life supremely uncomfortable for anybody who was.

Will hummed quiet agreement, and ducked outside briefly to start the charcoal in the grill. It was easy, a comfortable rhythm. He noticed when Will came back because he lingered close, slid an arm loosely around Greg's waist. "Smells good."

"Smells like charcoal and accelerant." Which, yeah, smelled pretty good, actually. The rice was cooking, and Greg leaned back into that embrace, one hand steadily crumbling feta a little more as he went along. "Mmmm."

"We should go on vacation after this. You, me, Mal. The truck." Will just eased in, spreading his palm across Greg's stomach comfortably. "And by after this, I mean, after the semester. Just a little one. But somewhere."

Yeah, that sounded amazing, but then, Will could probably read everything he'd ever thought about for possible vacation plans. It would be nice. Better than nice, in fact, and he hummed in appreciation at the idea. "Yeah. Let's. I'd like that." And then some.

"Talking is a lot more alluring than just browsing." Will nudged a kiss to the back of his neck, turned his head to look towards the grill. Mal was asleep, so there wasn't a worry about him getting interested in the grill again. "Anything you want."

Oh. Oh, that was. That was a very nice promise, and he drew in a deep breath and got a little closer. "That sounds amazingly good." And then some, and it was enough to distract him from what he was doing aside from the occasional stir.

There wasn't really a fear that he'd drag Will somewhere that Will wouldn't find a way to enjoy. There didn't seem to be a spot in the country where Will'd grumble -- except the obstacle course at Quantico, but Greg wouldn't have savored that much, either. "Anything. Take your time coming up with it."

"I'll think about it." It would be nice to do something that didn't involve a case, especially if Gil wasn't likely to wander up on them and make himself, well. Make his presence felt.

Maybe they should visit his folks. He'd really like to introduce Will to his family. Even Auntie Vilja's mean little dogs.

"I like mean little dogs. And grouchy big ones, and crooked hipped ones. There's no way I won't like mean little ones." He didn't say anything about Gil, so Greg let that drop in his own mind.

"They'll love you," he declared. "Not just the dogs, because dogs always love you, but my family. They're, my mom's folks, anyway, they're like that. They'll love you." His dad's side of the family, well. There were some things that it was better not to think about, never mind discuss. "We could head out at Christmas one year."

"I'd like that. I like Christmas." When he wasn't still rehabbing and doing physical therapy through it. The good memories probably barely outweighed the bad.

Greg hoped to god that the day would come when he could make enough good ones that they would outweigh the others. "Maybe we can do that soon then." It was a nice idea. He wanted his family to meet Will; he would fit right in, weird as other people might find that.

"Put it on the calendar," Will murmured, lingering behind Greg for a moment. He wiped his hands on a towel, and then nudged a wrist against the small of Greg's back. "Okay, I'm going to go grill. It might be hot enough now."

Yeah, and he was always hot enough to light up Greg, a thought that earned him a quirky smile and a quick kiss. "Yeah, I'll finish here."

The smile Will gave on his way out the door carrying half-rubbed steaks with him was all promise. Greg didn't think they'd get very far, but he hadn't been expecting a good dinner, either. Maybe they might manage something else after all.

The smile Will gave on his way out the door, carrying half-rubbed steaks with him was all promise. Greg didn't think they'd get very far, but he hadn't been expecting a good dinner, either. Maybe they might manage something else after all. It was enough to perk him up, make him smile while he measured out spices and washed his peppers. Sex didn't mean everything, but damn straight it would be nice when they had the time. There wasn't any hurry, exactly; being together the way they were was highly enjoyable. Just... it would be great when they had time for more again, and it gave him something to do while he worked on putting the peppers together, setting them to roast before pulling out green onions and tomato to dice.

It was something Will was working through, and the fact that he enjoyed Will's company so much when they were still mostly just sleeping together and fussing around said a lot to Greg. Usually, he slept with guys and then worked out if they were decent in the companionship arena after. It was nice to work it out the other way around first for once, and he thought it was probably a damned good sign that things might last between them. Would last, and he was going to introduce Will to his _family_ , which. Wow.

Just.

Wow.

He hadn't introduced anyone to his family since Julie, and that had been his third year in college. Not even Gil, because he would have needed to explain the whole Sara thing to go with it, and that had made him put it off on more than one occasion.

He didn't think anything could make him put off introducing Will. Not really.

Will was safe and comfortable, easy with people despite the fact that he could pick up on everything they were saying, everything they were thinking. He liked people, never mind that he saw all of the horrible parts of them all the time, and that was something Greg could agree with him on. For every sad horrifying thing he picked up on, there were quieter, better moments, too, moments that reminded him people were good at the heart of it, that they did nice things for one another. A brush against a handrail might get him a flash of someone beating someone else to death with it, and an inch further along it might bring up a neighbor who regularly helped to get Mrs. Johnson's groceries into her apartment.

There were so many things Gil had never understood, and Will got all of them. It was just... it was kind of amazing.

He remembered once upon a time, Gil'd had that sort of easy, childlike awe at life, good and bad, and that felt gone now. Will's awe wasn't childlike, but it was an open and easy respect. "Hey, I picked up a good recipe on the way home," Will said as he wandered back in to get a little dish of water. "We'll have to get groceries in for it, but maybe post-case celebration?" They could invite Jack if he managed not to suicide in the midst of it all.

That was a growing concern, an itch in Greg's bones. There was something off about him, something that made him want to worry at its edges. He wasn't entirely sure what, but something, and he couldn't help the idea that it was nothing good. "Sounds great. Even without knowing what it is." Might be good, might be a disaster, but then they could try something else again later.

"Guy's a chef for an Argentinian restaurant. Should be good." Will ducked back out onto the porch, closing the door carefully to keep Mal in and the meat out.

It didn't take long for him to crip his way over to Greg, all catching hip and everything. "Poor buddy. Yeah, I know, it's just mean of him, but I've gotta admit that I'll like my meat better on a plate than you getting at it. I'm sure you'll get scraps."

All the scraps in the world. There was probably an extra bit of meat being grilled without rub on it that was just for Mal because Will spoiled his dogs. Completely rotten, in fact, and he rubbed against Greg's knees while he worked. It was soothing and steady, and he found himself humming under his breath the whole time. The week had sucked, and he was worried about, oh, everything ever, but right at this moment? Life was pretty damned good.

The peppers were smelling pretty tasty, so he pulled them out, checking the rice again before moving it off of the eye. The whole thing was coming along pretty well, and it only took a few minutes to toss together the spices and the onions and lightly caramelize them. He'd just finished mixing everything together and started spooning it all into the peppers when his phone rang.

Well, hell.

He reached for it, and answered it, even if he didn't want to. "Hello."

The awkward shuffling on the other end made his heart drop a little, his mouth tighten. It wasn't that he wanted to be an asshole; it was that Gil was being so fucking persistent that it made his head hurt. No, it made _him_ hurt, because he hadn't been so damned interested before, had he?

Now he was just interested, too interested. _"Hello?"_

Death.

Taxes.

Gil.

God, he wished that Greg had been that interesting to him a year ago. "Hey."

_"Are you all right?"_ Was he all right? Was he, what was that? What, he was making dinner, everything was excellent.

"I'm fine. Is that why you called?" It was damn strange, to be honest, a call out of the blue. He didn't know what to do with it.

_"It is. I, uh... I'm concerned that the killer might be targeting us."_ No shit Sherlock, he wanted to say, because Will had pointed that out right at the start. _"Or law enforcement in general." ___

__Greg canted a hip against the counter and then bit back a sigh, going back to stirring together his ingredients. "Yeah. He's got some pretty severe issues. I mean. Biting the heads off of birds? Not exactly kosher, and it's probably not the first step. So, maybe he got caught. Probably, even. Small town, people know one another, could be no charges got pressed but the fear of god was put in him, at least as far as things go." It was building on a theme, and it was guessing, but it was... yeah. It was probably just an excuse to talk to him._ _

___"And your boyfriend tends to attract..."_ Oh, and like Gil didn't. Why did he have to waffle between bearable and dick? It made Greg's head hurt, made his skull ache down to his spine._ _

__Spooning the rice concoction into the peppers at least kept his hands busy. "Pot. Kettle. Look. I'm... I've got a couple of ideas. I'll run them past a few people. Might end up calling you to be part of it." Just so they could get this over and done._ _

__He wanted to go back to a life of weekend paint ball and not wondering if Will had human body shrapnel induced AIDS. _"I think I have a decent lead on him, or I did..."_ No, no, no, he wasn't going to talk case. He wasn't going to talk any more than he had to, and he was going to have a nice evening._ _

__This was just going to cause indigestion. "Gil. Just... hold onto your ideas, okay?" He couldn't bring himself to be as pissy about it as he wanted. "I'm going to pull a few private strings." Will could get him a few things, his aunt Disa might get a feel for it. He was pretty sure Crawford knew more psychics than he had on hand, in any case, and with a little guidance, they could stretch out over the area. If he was escalating here enough that he noticed the people trying to track him, he would probably stick around to see what happened. It wasn't anything more than a hunch, but he'd almost be willing to bet on it._ _

__He just had to hang in there. _"I... you're probably eating dinner. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called. I just felt concerned..."_ And it could've been anything. It could've been someone next door who was worried._ _

__God, he was such a sucker. That was the thing of it. "Gil." He didn't know how to put this, exactly. "He's good to me. And he understands. It's.... it's just something that you're going to have to get used to because it isn't going to change."_ _

___"I know."_ He could almost imagine Gil's facial expression just then. _"I'm sorry. I should've... I'm sorry."__ _

__And then he hung up._ _

__Jesus, Mary and Joseph. His headache was getting worse, and he pretty much wanted to bury his head under the nearest pillow. The sound of the door opening let him know Will was coming and made him want to throw something because seriously, they'd been having a better afternoon._ _

__Fuck._ _

__Will hung back for a moment, and he was quiet. "Hey. Uh..."_ _

__"Yeah. I know." He did, he really did, and he laid down the phone before he finished filling the peppers and slipped them back into the oven. Reaching out, he pressed the button to turn it off. Another five minutes and he could pull it out and they'd be done. "I really do know."_ _

__"Just, uh." Will closed the door behind him, and he slid the steaks onto the countertop. "They need time to rest, anyway."_ _

__Reaching up, Greg rubbed at his face. "I need to invest in Valium. Or maybe Xanax."_ _

__"Yeah." Will slid an arm around his waist, but mostly stayed out of his way. He pressed his fingers against Greg's skin, at the side, lingering. "We can start a poppy farm."_ _

__"Do you think if I asked prettily, somebody would just let me have a cot in my lab and lock him out? I could stop answering the phone unless it's you. Or, you know, maybe I can just move into your bedroom and refuse to leave until he's on a plane. This is... You know, I wished for this kind of shit. Okay, less stalkery, more _I love you, not Sara_ , but still."_ _

__"Yeah. Love isn't sane or wise." He rested his chin on Greg's shoulder, and added, "Present company excepted. Still, to start a poppy farm, we'd need to find a third world country. That'll buy you some distance..."_ _

__There was no way he could keep from laughing at that. "Mmmm. Maybe we could just stock up on lemon poppyseed muffins or something. It'd be cheaper and Mal wouldn't have to spend any time in quarantine between countries."_ _

__Will always made him feel better. That was the thing. He filled in the crevices, all the little places that were mysterious and part of Greg's life. Life was too short to be all fucked up and miserable all the time when it was easier to be all fucked up and mostly upbeat about it. "I sort of like blueberry better. Or carrot. Bran." It seemed like the suggestion of something else they could try to burn in the oven. "I promise I'm not going to drop by the school again."_ _

__Yeah. Yeah, that was... "Probably for the best. Besides. There are better doughnuts close to home."_ _

__It pulled a snort from Will, and he pressed his forehead against Greg's shoulder. "I love you. We'll go with better doughnuts next time."_ _

__That right there. That was the reason he was here, because Will understood and he, he said things like that. _I love you_ , just right out there, It wasn't something he had to intuit. It was just a fact, and Greg squirmed his way around, leaning into him and stealing a kiss. "Love you, too."_ _

__"I already guessed that," Will smiled against him. "And I'll get the plates."_ _

__Yeah, and they could eat until they were satiated and more or less passed out on the couch. It sounded like a pretty damn good plan to him, all things considered. "I'll get ice."_ _

__"Meet you back in the living room?" Will moved away, reaching up for plates. Greg still needed to try to solve the case, but he needed to rest, too. Get his thoughts together, because he'd need to keep his family out of it and the rest of them in it safely. Neither Will nor Gil had ever been all that good at getting out of this kind of trouble without risking themselves at any cost._ _

__"Mmm, yeah. Soon as I pull the peppers out of the oven again."_ _

__"I'll get them," Will waved him off gently. "I can feel you fretting through Mal imagining how the steaks taste."_ _

__Arguing would be kind of stupid. Instead, Greg reached for the glasses and moved to get ice from the refrigerator dispenser. "How many psychics can Crawford get his hands on at a time?"_ _

__Will's mouth was a tight line when he turned around, looking over his shoulder at Greg. "After Starling, none."_ _

__Well, shit._ _

__"None except us?" That was disappointing, and a little scary, honestly. What did it say about them that Crawford could get at them? "That kind of fucks up my hopes a little."_ _

__"Yeah, I know. I'm." Will finished moving meat and plated the peppers. "I think there's something broken in me. I want to work this and I don't want to work this."_ _

__That was painful to consider, and he rubbed his fingers against his wrist, frowning. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."_ _

__Will quirked a eyebrow at him, pulling for a smile. "Yeah, well. I'm still working on that." He gestured one plate at Greg, taking the lead towards the living room._ _

__Maybe he would always be working on that; too much time spent racing after psychotic killers. "I was thinking." Clearly. It wasn't as if Will didn't know already. "You, me, Gil. It'd be too much, we'd be spread too thin, but if we had enough of us to spend a few days at truck stops....."_ _

__"We, uh." Will shook his head slightly. "I know a few others. I'm always uncomfortable exposing people to that if they're not..."_ _

__"I know." And he did. He really did, but he also wanted to get this finished. He settled on the couch, one foot drawn up beneath him as he leaned back, taking the plates from Will so he could get comfortable. "I was thinking about calling Aunt Disa." And anybody else who might feel like visiting._ _

__Will shook his head as he settled in with Greg. "I'm afraid to get anyone else involved. If... The fewer people on it, even if we managed to move so much faster, it's too risky."_ _

__"The faster we find him, the faster all of this will be finished. That's all, and I just... I really want...." He wanted it to be over, he wanted Gil to go back to Costa Rica, and he wanted Will to be safe. It was obvious that whatever they had in common that attracted serial killers was genetic._ _

__Maybe it was some kind of psychic pheromone. Will snorted, and picked up his fork, still shaking his head. "I know. I know."_ _

__Gently, Greg nudged him with an elbow, tilting his head to the side. "Yeah, I know you know. You know, that's one of the cool things about this whole..." He wiggled his hand and grinned._ _

__"And I know that you know that I know that you -- yeah. It helps." It helped that they could both be themselves, even when things went to shit. "Now, tell me how shitty the steak is. Your peppers are great."_ _

__Like Will could possibly do anything that was anything less than great, especially when it came to charring meat. He hummed and speared one of the bites off of Will's plate before sticking it in his mouth. "Mmmmm."_ _

__The edge of Will's mouth pulled up, and faltered for a moment before he took another bite of the pepper. He slouched a little in the sofa beside Greg. "Yeah, I really can't keep doing this."_ _

__Once upon a time, he might have been insecure enough that he would think Will meant something other than the obvious. "We can always take a leave of absence. I know you wouldn't want to, but they've got Gil." He maybe didn't have enough vacation time for that, but what the hell._ _

__"The last thing I want to do is leave them with an amateur to this who's still getting a handle on his head," Will murmured. "There's just no way around it, no matter how hard you or I try."_ _

__"I'm gonna call Aunt Disa." It was the best option he had, Greg figured, and he started slicing his steak into pieces. "At the very least, I would imagine that she can point us in some kind of helpful direction. We could hit places in teams. Bet Sheppard would be pretty good in a situation like this."_ _

__Will exhaled through his mouth in a shivery noise. "Ah, now there's an idea. I'm not going to feel guilty about putting Sheppard forward anywhere..."_ _

__Hell, even McKay might be handy. He was terrifyingly proficient with a paintball gun, and the shifting memories of hours at the gun range had lingered on his clothing and his skin when they had played. "It's a plan, then."_ _

__Maybe not a great plan. Maybe not even a good one, but it was all they had for the time being, and something?_ _

__Something was better than nothing._ _

____

~*~*~*~

He was going to die of high cholesterol, but at least it all tasted pretty damned good. Greg had to admit that the pie at most of these places had been pretty damned good. McKay seemed to have developed a disturbing love of grits over the last couple of weeks, but he'd confessed to a love of MREs, too. Clearly he was a sick man.

"I need a Lipitor chaser," McKay sighed, slouching on the stool and looking over his shoulder. Nothing, nothing there. Not even a hint of something, and he was starting to think that this was going to be one fuck-all useless attempt at finding something.

His head usually hurt like hell by the end of these treks, and the day he'd spent touching things trying to figure out who the serial rapist was had left him with one hell of a nosebleed and a burst capillary in one of his eyes. Will wasn't looking any better, ragged at the edges and losing weight despite the damned pie. "And some Pepcid."

"I'm more of a fan of Tums." McKay waved a hand from side to side, still casually scanning the diner. "I had about a year where I sampled every antacid on the market. There's something to be said for Tums."

"Chalky taste and all?" Yeah, not so much a great thing for Greg, but to each his own. He glanced around again and sighed. "I'm starting to think this idea sucked."

"Oh, I started thinking that at the last place." McKay took a sip of his soda, and squirmed in the seat. "Still. There are _so_ many worse ideas we could try. Hooking, for example."

The logical progression from eating greasy breakfast to selling themselves for sex was a little bizarre for Greg, but he was fairly certain there was some kind of sense to it. McKay made weird logic jumps sometimes. The route was a little circuitous, but it was always entertaining. "Yeah, I, uh. I think it's probably for the best that we don't try that one."

"Of course. But the man's killing prostitutes, so..." McKay tilted his mouth in what passed for a smug look. "Horrible idea. You'd get more money than me."

Yeah, that was something, at least. Greg knew already that McKay preferred to have the better idea out of the bunch, so that was enough to make him smile back at him. "Yeah, well. It would help if there were more of us." Aunt Disa had managed to narrow things down a little even if she hadn't wanted to do it. She'd been worried, understandably so, but she'd also seemed pretty certain that things would be all right. Well, that they'd live, anyway, or she probably wouldn't have given him any information at all.

Except, Go on vacation. Now. __

_Aunt Disa tended not to be subtle, even when she tried. "There aren't, and we're not splitting up."_

_Yeah, not so much with the splitting up. "That'd be kind of pointless. I mean, if we had more people like me and Will, we could put a few more on it, but..." But._

_"If I were psychic, I'd use it to avoid crime scenes, not find them," Rodney murmured, spoon drawling through his grits, slow and steady._

_Greg shrugged, head tilting to the side. "Yeah, well. Some do. We're... this is part of what we are. What we do. Will's got all the self-preservation of a base-jumping lemming." Understatement of the century, in fact. Crap. "Maybe you should have gone with him instead of Sheppard."_

_"I can handle my own base jumping lemming, but not yours. John has... Well, not good sense. Never good sense. Luck."_

_There was that. "As lemmings go, they're both pretty bad. At least two of us have something like a sense of self-preservation." In a take what they could get kind of way. "And we're both here." Reaching out, Greg grabbed the salt shaker. There was a slow flash of people, an arguing couple, grandparents with kids, a lonely guy who wanted to go home. Nothing suspicious._

_It was maddening. The man could be sitting right there with them, and unless he touched something Greg touched, Greg would never know. "Trust John to keep Graham from getting hurt. He has a better track record on keeping people alive than I have."_

_That was a story he didn't have to tell. Out of all of the people Greg had ever sensed, McKay and Sheppard had some of the most vivid sense-memories. They left them behind without even meaning to do it, and it made him feel a little guilty. It also made him feel a little sick, but mostly because either way, it wasn't good. "Thanks."_

_Rodney thought of loss, and there were so many. So much guilt, moments he'd been there and watched people die. He shifted, looking around again slowly. "Huh. Right corner."_

_Of course, that also meant that his sense of self-preservation was damn good. Greg snuck a glance in the direction indicated. There was a guy there, hat pulled low, unkempt beard. Suspicious was maybe an understatement. "I see."_

_"We'll keep an eye on him." Rodney tilted his head, shifted back into his seat to be a little less obvious. Considering he was still pretty damned obvious, Greg couldn't help smiling._

_"And distract the waitress before...." Yeah. If he could get his hands on the silverware, at least he might get something out of it._

_"Yeah," Rodney agreed, looking pleased. Even if nothing came out of it, they were patiently waiting and trying. They were doing something. There was something about actively taking steps that made a guy feel like he might actually accomplish something, and at least they were all getting paid to sit around in truck stop diners. Crawford occasionally came through for them, and this was a pretty good example of that._

_Clearing his throat, Greg sat forwards a little in order to keep his eye on the man a little less obviously. "So. Entertain me." McKay had good stories, but then, he would._

_"Entertain you. Hmn." Rodney reached for his soda, taking an idle sip. "The best stories are classified, but I'm still pretty sure I'm working in a three ring circus, even now."_

_"Do tell." Greg got that, he really did. "My last job was a lot like that. Crime lab in Las Vegas. It was awesome." At least the lab had been, crazy and entertaining._

_"This is less like work and more like... retirement," Rodney admitted after a moment, mouth tilting a little. "And staff work. I hate staff work. The fact that these people are getting paid for anything at all is unbelievable."_

_"Group work." Yeah, Greg had always hated that stuff, and his face probably reflected that. "I was always kinda paranoid about the work everybody else did so I mostly ended up re-doing it."_

_"It's... different than group work." Rodney waved a hand slightly. "I'm supervising, and making policy judgments when I'd rather be out there doing."_

_It was kind of funny. He would lay money on the fact that McKay was a supervising policy maker once upon a time, the kind of guy who preferred the theoretical to the practical. Everything in life changed, and that wasn't any different. "There's a lot to be said for being out there doing. A lot to be said for not being out there doing, too. Will would still have all of his various parts if he hadn't been out there doing."_

_"I can't believe I'm going to say this, but if safety makes life not worth living..." He shrugged. "I fully expect that I'll bury John after some stupid fiasco."_

_Greg started to speak, but then the guy in the booth stood up and threw down a five, walking past them as he headed for the door. "I'm gonna..." He tilted his head to the side._

_"Yeah, sure." He twisted a little, half watching Greg and half looking for the waitress, so Greg just moved. It was faster that way. All he needed was a touch, and then he could sit down and go back to being creepy._

_He hated going without his gloves in public. He ended up with the headache from hell when they did this, and so they only went out every couple of days. Today wasn't much of an exception and everything seemed to jump out at him. Brush of a fake plant, little girl crying, accidentally too close when he passed someone, image of a hospital room in the night, all too open and too... something. He didn't know how Will managed to live this way. Not really, because he at least had the ability to do something to block out all of it._

_The man's fork was close to the edge of the table and he reached out, fingers brushing the handle and --_

_It hit him in a fast rush, seeing the swan head, seeing a woman screaming as fingers wrapped around her throat, more and more, and it hadn't been right. The woman, she hadn't been what he wanted, and then another body in his truck. He'd stroked it lovingly. He'd thought about it, thought that finally there was someone, something, that loved him, that felt right, and there. There, flash of Will and Gil and nameless faceless law enforcement types, but he'd focused on them. He'd realized that they were a threat._

_He was looking for them, wanted to end that threat. He wasn't toying with them, no, he'd tried to end that threat and hadn't gotten it right. He'd get it right the next time, and..._

_And then he'd gotten up and left._

_"Greg? Greg?" Snapping fingers, there in front of his eyes, and the bloom of agony behind his eyes multiplied. One hand fumbled, grabbing for napkins, and he shoved them under his own nose. "I'm sorry, he... it's just a seizure, nothing to worry about."_

_Yeah. McKay sounded way too panicked for somebody who was accustomed to this kind of thing. "'m ogay." More or less. Jesus._

_"That was the guy?" McKay leaned, looking toward the trucks. They had a license plate, that was the safe thing, surely McKay would see what the guy's license was? He was a genius. He should, should...._

_"Yeah. Yeah, go, go look, go make sure..." That he knew. That he could tell them the important bit._

_Rodney dashed off, clattering down the concrete steps on his way out of the door and almost tripping in his hurry, but Greg was sure. They'd get what they needed, someone with lots of guns and a big sting operation could get the guy. They could keep safe and away_

_He wouldn't get any closer to Will and Gil. He wouldn't. It was important, because they were goddamned serial killer bait, and the waitress gently settled him into the booth. It brought him in contact with other things, and his hands jerked upwards, his entire body shuddering with horror._

_"You need to sit down -- your nose is bleeding. Do you need someone to call 911 for you, sweetie?"_

_"Nah. 's... happens all the time." He sounded drunk, but he was pretty sure that it wouldn't be the first time somebody showed up at this diner drunk. Probably wouldn't be the last, either. "Sorry."_

_"Where'd your friend run off to... Oh my god." She pulled away, and it made Greg lean up, twisting to look out the window. He could see, groggily, McKay. And the killer. And Gil. Fighting in the parking lot._

_Jesus fucking Christ._

_It was. It was the lemming thing. They just wanted to be the grand sacrifice or something, and Greg struggled up, staggering towards the door. God, he should have considered that he might need to be armed, he should have, should have... he had no idea what the fuck, and his heart was pounding, his head a solid hammer throb. Hopefully the waitress was already calling 911, and he started to pull out his cell phone to call Will. In a fight like that, when there was already two of them trying to wrestle the guy down, there was no sense in throwing himself into it. He'd just get in the way, and okay, he'd done the whole self-defense shit in various classes, but he was pretty sure that he wouldn't be much of a help._

_The sounds of the fighting intensified at the same moment Will answered his cell. _"Greg?"__

_"We got him!" He sounded all sorts of fucked up. "McKay and Gil..."_

__"Get back in the diner."_ It was strange, and stretching, and worrisome, made him wonder how close Will was, because he could hear the sound of Will turning off his engine in the background._

_"But I..."_

__"Get back in the diner!"_ _

_Yeah, he'd always sucked at following instructions. His first thought after someone told him not to do something was usually something like _Oh, yeah? Watch me._ His head was killing him, though, and his nose was a bloody mess. He could see Gil and Rodney, and the guy had a knife, and so he did the stupid thing._

_He waded in closer and reached for his weapon. Never mind that he was only barely armed, that he didn't want to have to do a thing, that Grissom was completely useless in a fight. There were kittens who were far more effective in a fight than Grissom. And maybe he had tunnel vision. Maybe his world was narrowing down a little, because he didn't see him, but he heard two voices overlapping each other._

_"Drop the knife!" and "Put your hands over your head!" Just like that, loud and clear, and maybe he yelled something in there, too. The guy didn't seem inclined to do it, which wasn't much of a surprise. The yell when he reached out to slice towards McKay was the only warning anybody got before a shot rang out, reverberating from trucks and the diner._

_Will still ran towards the body after the shot, like it was super important to handcuff a corpse, but how the hell had he and Sheppard known to come there when they did? Had they already been on the road, had... Had Will's reach gotten that far?_

_It made him sick; all nerves, and Will was carrying his gun pointed low and at the ground, and Sheppard, too, and Greg didn't really know who'd shot the guy. He didn't much care, either, because Rodney and Gil were still too close by him for Greg's comfort, and he couldn't tell if they were all right. There was blood, and maybe he was a little shocky because the last few minutes had been shitty and had stretched out into what seemed like hours. They were both standing up, though, and standing was good. Standing meant alive, even if they were damn confusing, confused. Why would they tackle a guy when they were the two unarmed people there?_

_"Stupidity," Will sighed, levering himself to his feet. "Sheppard, can you call again about backup? We need the scene locked down."_

_"Yeah." Sheppard sounded pissed, although Greg was pretty sure that was nothing except worry. Greg and McKay shouldn't have been unarmed, but should and shouldn't didn't always have a hell of a lot to do with reality. They'd intended to get information and make it possible to follow the guy, not tackle him, and then Gil had gotten involved._

_Greg moved closer, swallowing hard when he saw the guy. He had more than one hole in him and he was pretty dead. Anticlimactic, the whole thing. Who would have thought his idea would actually pan out?_

_"Your aunt." Will rubbed the back of his wrist against the bone of his brow. "Christ. I should've known you'd hit on it, Greg."_

_"You almost shot me!" That was McKay's voice, rising and half outraged at Sheppard. At least that was better than Gil's blank expression as he stood there, looking down at the guy's body._

_"You were wrestling with a swan-head biting serial killer with a fondness for explosives, Rodney!" Yeah. Sheppard didn't look that scary until he totally was. It kind of explained a lot. "I'd shoot him again if I had to!"_

_Yeah, that was a worry-fueled argument in the making, but Greg wasn't part of it. Gil was sitting there, looking dazed. At least he wasn't trying to perform CPR. The guy was way beyond that being any kind of help whatsoever, and Greg took a deep breath, deciding maybe he ought to sit down, too._

_"Thank you." Will stood still by him, and he could probably lean up against Will's leg with no interference. "Jesus. Just sit tight, all right? They're on their way. In the next ten minutes."_

_"We should buy Aunt Disa something. Flowers or chocolates or maybe one of those crazy floral fruit thingamabobs." Greg was pretty sure that Will had ibuprofen or some of the really good drugs Alan had given them._

_"There's a great place in Crystal City. They do a really nice fluer de sel caramel." Will fished into his pocket, and produced two pills and a little pocket lint. He leaned down a little to hand them to Greg. "You were right."_

_He looked up at Will, gave him a crooked smile as he took the pills. "You know, I think I might keep you."_

_Will gave a quiet chuckle that was lost in the sound of Gil's voice as he finally got to his senses and stopped staring at the body that, well, one of them had put there. "You... he would've surrendered. He was going to go quietly."_

_"No, he was thinking about what it would be like. That's different than intent. And he had a knife."_

_A knife that he knew altogether too well how to use, and just thinking about it made Greg sick. "Sometimes what's on the surface, it isn't everything. It's just... it's like an oil-slick. It overlays everything, and it's not all that pertinent to reality."_

_Gil looked betrayed by that somehow._

_"You know," Will shrugged. They were all watching Gil pull himself together while McKay and Sheppard held point at the other end of the body. There were looky loos from the restaurant crowding the steps, but nobody was asking questions. Will's car had lights flashing on it, which helped; it assured everyone that it was a police thing and not a murder, which was so. So stupid if Greg thought about it for any length of time. "It's like cooking pasta, and the differences between undercooked, al dente, overcooked, and al forno. It has a texture in your teeth."_

_From somewhere, Greg managed to dredge up a smile, maybe a little reassuring. He was still rubbing napkins below his nose a little now that the flow was mostly staunched, so who could say if it really was. "You'll learn it. Eventually." Maybe then he'd stop looking so lost._

_"I really recommend learning yourself," Will murmured, "First."_

_"And you learned from...." Gil grimaced, and Will flinched, and for just a moment, Greg was halfway to standing up just so he wasn't even accidentally touching Will's leg. He never wanted to get caught between the two of them again, never wanted to feel that awful microphone over-amp in his head again._

_"Don't." Will's voice was sharp. "Do we have to keep treading this over and over again? It's like watching a kid put a fork in a light socket." At least Gil laughed at that._

_That was something, a vast improvement over the way things had been of late. The newspapers would probably have bystander testimony of law enforcement laughing over a dead body, and that was going to suck, but what the hell._

_"How long will it be before someone else is here?" McKay's voice sounded a little sharp at the edges._

_Will tilted his head slightly, and started to say, "They're coming," just as the doppler effect of incoming sirens started to perk at their ears. "Why?"_

_"I'm a little _shot_ is all."_

_Shit. Shit, that was bad, and Greg didn't know what to do about. "Rodney?" Sheppard sounded shaken, and he turned away from the crowd to look at him._

_"I'll take a look." Oh, god. Not Gil's first aid skills._

_"You just winged me. Well, one of you. But it was probably you." He had a hand at the outside of his side, and Greg could see a little blood. Just a little, not a terrible amount but enough to make him wonder whose bullet it had been and what the angle was. "Or he stabbed me. I'm not really..."_

_"Rodney!" John looked pissed, and seriously, who got pissed at someone for getting injured. "Going from yelling about hangnails to _not telling me_ you're...."_

_"I said I was almost shot! I didn't realize I was _actually_ shot," Rodney snapped back while Will groaned, and shook his head a little. Two cop cars hauled up, and an ambulance, wheeling into the parking lot around the parked trucks._

_Thank god for small favors._

_"It's a three ring circus," Greg offered, a little dazed. The drugs were definitely kicking in, slow and steady, and that could only be a good thing. Maybe they should have offered some to McKay._

_"Could interact with the drugs they'll give him," Will offered with a shrug, crouching down beside Greg for a moment. One of the officers was out of the car and starting towards them._

_It was going to be a long fucking afternoon._

__

~*~*~*~

Greg hadn't been camping since Eagle Scouts. Well, except for that one time when he'd gone to Alabama with his college roommate, and frankly, even staying at their house had been a lot like camping.

There had been an outhouse.

Okay, so admittedly the thing hadn't been in use, but it had been there, and that was close enough for government work.

This was real camping. This was out in BFE, five plus hours outside of Northern Virginia. But still... in Virginia, which sort of baffled Greg, but Will swore they hadn't crossed into North Carolina yet. Swore.

Given that he hadn't expected to see so much vacant sand like that in Virginia, he was inclined to think Will was lying, at least before they got here. "Seriously? I never thought that we'd end up camping on the beach. It's..." Amazing. Gorgeous, too, and okay. He could totally deal with the pit toilets, in any case. This beach was nothing like the ones at home but it was a familiar sound, the steady wash of water making him feel comfortable, feel able to breathe. "This is amazing."

"I'm glad you can say that after the hike." Will had set down their gear but wasn't moving to pitch the tent, not just yet. They'd had a long, loitering walk, and they had a little time left before sunset. It'd felt good to hike like that after having been cramped up in the car for so long. "We can wade into it."

There was no stopping the way he grinned, half-turning to look at him. "I never would have thought this would be out here. The sound of it is fantastic."

Will curved his arm over Greg's back, a slow, lazy gesture as he glanced from Greg out to the water. "Yeah. It's the whole reason I stay out on the coast. The ocean is beautiful. If you want to hike and see the bay side in the morning, we can."

Yeah, that sounded like a great idea, and he leaned into Will, knowing that he already knew it sounded like a great idea to Greg. "So. The horses come out this far?" They'd been gorgeous and kind of pushy. Will had warned him that it was a bad idea to feed them, so he'd not done it, but they'd still been looking.

"Oh yeah. The horses come out wherever they like. Sometimes they get as far as the beach we parked up at. Foxes, too." But not bears, which Greg was pretty pleased to know. He didn't want to think about being savaged by a bear in the woods. There was another cluster of campers at the site nearest theirs, but no one else at their particular site. 

He wondered if Will had reserved all four spots for just them. Will laughed.

"What?" He tilted his head, looking at him with a sideways glance. "I know you!"

He laughed again, and leaned into Greg. "Okay, yeah. You got me. You do know me. I didn't want to have to make small talk over the brats with adventurous college kids."

True. Definitely true, and so he turned, one arm wrapping around Will's waist. "Got to admit, that? That's definitely not something I'm interested in, either."

Will smiled against Greg's cheek, and turned his head, faint beard stubble scratching as he kissed in front of Greg's ear. "Just us and that fox over there."

"You sure he's not rabid?" Yeah, he was pretty sure. Asking was part of the fun, though. "I mean. McKay'd ask, anyway." Without a doubt, and then bitch about the sand, but that was more or less half the fun when those guys were around.

"Yeah, but grazes and sand don't mix." Will rucked Greg's t-shirt up by slow fractions, his hand feigning a massaging motion. "He's not rabid. He can smell food, though, and we're funny human things. He was looking for birds."

"Hmmm." That felt ridiculously good, kind of like the sea breeze brushing just so in between the caresses of those fingers. "We should probably think about putting up the tent before it gets dark, you know."

"Yeah. Do you want to fight with the camp stove while I do that?" Will only pulled away slowly, still watching the fox. "Okay, if I say 'run', head for the water. He likes the look of the pulls on your shoes."

"Crap." Yeah, crap, and he eyed the fox with a wary glance for a long minute before he started working on the camp stove. It wasn't so difficult; the hard part had been dragging it along with the tent and all of their other stuff. "Just give me a yell if I need to pull them off and hold them over my head or something. Throw them further down the beach."

"Nah, I think I've got this one," Will murmured as he crouched down and started to unpack the tightly compressed tent. Greg watched a wary motion of fox behind tall grasses, and then Will stood up sharply with a loud 'Boo!' -- and off it went, kicking up little puffs of sand in its hurry. Will's smile was warm, delighted as he watched it go.

"You enjoyed that." Of course he did. If it came down to animals versus humans with Will, there was no question of which he preferred. "This isn't so bad. Sure you wouldn't prefer help with the tent?"

"I can get it up by myself." Will crouched back down, still grinning. "Animals are very honest and open. It's easy. I should've been a veterinarian."

He couldn't help the way he smiled. Will always made him want to do that, made the world a better place somehow. "Maybe you should consider it as a second profession some day." It had to be hella better than chasing down serial killers, anyway. Greg just thought it was surprising that he hadn't decided on that years ago.

"I thought helping people was more important. Everyone loves animals. Not everyone loves people." He started to pop together the tent frame. "Maybe I'll retire sometime and go work in an animal shelter for my second career."

Yeah, that sounded like a ridiculously good idea, in point of fact, and so Greg went back to setting up the camp stove, reaching the point where it ought to fire up and then waiting for Will.

He'd run the poles through the tent, and it mostly looked like a tent, but he was trying to stake it down at the same time and it didn't. Well, maybe he was getting it.

Will laughed, kneeling on the end of a pole. "I've cheated like this before, I swear."

"Hey, I believe you!" Sort of. Well, more or less. It wasn't as though Greg was likely to be any better at it, in any case. He'd always kind of sucked at the whole tent thing. There was a reason his camping buddies usually put him in charge of chemical reactions. He usually came up with the best fires.

"I exploded a can of sterno once," Will offered, sliding a third pole into place. "So, I think we've got the right distribution of labor going."

"Are you absolutely sure I can't steady anything for you or...." Yeah, but he seemed to be handling it pretty well. "I'll unpack some of the other stuff."

Most of the time, he forgot Will was missing any fingers at all, mostly because he hadn't known Will before they'd found him so it seemed part of the baseline. Every once in a while he watched Will grip something weirdly, like the guy lines for the tent, and a little light went off in Greg's brain in sort of an 'oh, yeah' moment. He liked Will's hands. He liked how they felt against his skin, how they felt when his fingers slid into him...

"Mmhm, I'm never going to get this staked down if you keep thinking about sex."

Greg quirked a brow at him, unable to stop grinning. "Hey. If you'd quit being all hot and competent, I could quit thinking about sex."

Will licked his bottom lip, and leaned back from the tent, watching it. It looked stable, and like it wasn't going to blow away. "I brought the tent that isn't mesh for a reason..."

Oh. Well. That wasn't exactly a surprise. It was kind of just standard fare, but it made Greg grin anyway. "And reserved the surrounding campsites."

"Well, peace and quiet," Will murmured. He was standing up slowly, carefully, and seemed to deem the tent done. It looked good. "Completely worth the fifteen bucks for the brain quiet."

"And the privacy." Yeah, okay. He was kind of a pervert, but it wasn't as if Will didn't already know that. Tilting his head, Greg eyed the cooler thoughtfully. "Seriously. How did we carry all of this stuff again?"

"In big ass packs," Will grinned. He gave a stretch that made his back crack, and started to clear a spot to sit with the side of his shoe. After a minute or so, Greg grabbed a couple of beers and sat down next to him, handing over the first one he opened.

"At least it'll be lighter when we go back."

He leaned his shoulder into Greg's, and cracked the first beer open. "And full of trash."

"But lighter." For that matter, he felt lighter. Felt better, felt more like himself now. They'd been decompressing for a while, and things had just worked out better than he had expected.

It was little steps, but little steps were pretty damn important in the grand scheme of things. "You're a voice of reason. That could've gone... worse. Much worse."

Greg shrugged, leaning in close against Will's shoulder. "Yeah, well. Aunt Disa's kind of awesome like that." A stretch of quiet lasted for a few minutes. "I, um. Was kind of hoping you'd agree to go home with me this Christmas. Meet her and the rest of the family." Maybe Isoäiti could show him a few things, make it a little easier to be less open. It would make Greg worry less.

He set his beer in the sand, pressed it in so it stayed upright, and slid his arm behind Greg's back. His t-shirt was a little sweaty, stuck to his back, but it felt cooler now than it had when they'd been trekking there. "I'd love to meet your family. I feel like I already know them."

That was probably true. They spent kind of a ridiculous amount of time on the phone with his family some days. Poppa found Will deeply entertaining. "They think of you as family, so... that's good.'

Will leaned in a little more, nudging a kiss against Greg's jaw. "So, I was wondering if you want to move in with me. Somewhere. Well, me and Mal, he sort of comes with the deal."

Always.

His apartment was nice; nothing there but pretty sedate stuff, no violent history, nothing to make him run screaming. Will's place, though, that was something else altogether. It was warmth and Will scruffing Mal's ears and home. It was home even if he didn't live there just yet, and that was about to change. "I can sublet if I can't break the lease."

He felt Will's smile against his skin, a slowly spreading gesture. "I'll help you pack, then. Mal'd help you pack if he had thumbs." As it was, they could probably rope Sheppard and McKay in, because they were easy marks -- and Will laughed out loud.

"Helpful, they're helpful."

"Especially if we buy McKay doughnuts. And pizza. Another galaxy, you'd have thought somebody would have come up with great junk food eventually, right?" Yeah, right, and he turned his head, looked at Will and then leaned across to kiss him.

"One day, we're melting red bean paste in Sheppard's coffee." It was an easy, warm kiss, even if Will wanted to laugh. Even if Will had no control over what he picked up on, he had control over himself. He had, he knew when to stop and when to listen to Greg, and he did listen, and everyone had come out the other side safe except for the crazy serial killer.

Leaving Vegas had sucked. He had thought he was running away and that nothing could possibly fix all of the crap that was wrong. It was kind of funny how things had worked out to be so much better, and his hand curled at the nape of Will's neck, fingers warm on the damp shoulder of Will's t-shirt.

"Yeah. One day."


End file.
